It was a plain cell, such as was used by the early monks when this building was a monastery, possibly nine by six feet, with a high, small, grated hole for the only light and air. A narrow iron cot, a combination stand, and a low stool constituted the sole furniture. A rusty iron crucifix in the middle of the wall opposite the bed was the only decoration. The rest was blank stone, staring white with crumbling whitewash.
Stone floor, stone walls, stone ceiling,—cold, clammy, cheerless.
The floor was worn into a smooth, shallow furrow lengthwise, showing where countless weary inmates had paced up and down, up and down, during the long hours. And beneath the crucifix were scooped out two round hollows in the solid rock, where countless knees had bent in recognition of the Christ.
The religieuse seemed to forget the presence of Fouchette, for she dropped upon her own knees in the little hollows in the cold stone floor beneath the rusty iron crucifix on the wall.
"Oh, pardon, my child!" she exclaimed, coming back to the present as she arose from prayer, "I forgot. Forty years ago,—it comes upon me here."
She gently removed the little hat with its cheap flowers, then bent over and kissed the thin cheeks, promising to return soon with something to eat.
Fouchette heard the door close, the key grate harshly in the lock.
The moisture of the lips and eyes remained upon her cheeks. She felt it still warm, and involuntarily put up both hands, as if to further convince herself that the kisses were real and to hold them there.
The Christ was to her a myth, the crucifix a vague superstition, prayer a mere unmeaning mummery. But the kisses were tangible and easily understood.
But oh! the country!—the woods! the fields! the flowers!—freedom!