"Paris,—I will go to Paris!" said Fouchette, brightening up all at once.
To the two who heard her it was as if Fouchette had said, "I will go to the moon."
She slipped from between them and darted down the corridor. Before they had recovered from their astonishment she was out of the building and out of sight.
Nothing could have been more absurd.
But one girl had succeeded in scaling the high walls that surrounded the establishment of Le Bon Pasteur, and she had been pursued by savage dogs kept for such exigencies and brought back in mere shreds of clothing, with her flesh terribly lacerated. Even once outside, if the feat were possible and the dogs avoided, how was a bareheaded girl without a sou to get to Paris, three hundred kilometres? And, that surmounted, what would become of her in Paris?
It was absurd. It was impossible.
Meanwhile, Fouchette evaded the now lighted buildings in the rear and was skirting the high walls towards the north with the fleetness of a young deer.
The grounds of Le Bon Pasteur embraced about ten acres, a well-wooded section of an ancient park, the buildings, old and new, being on the side next to the town. By day one might easily see from wall to wall, the lowest branches of the trees being well clear of the ground, the latter being trampled grassless, hard, and smooth by thousands of youthful feet.
It was now growing too dark to see more than a few yards. This did not prevent Fouchette from making good speed. She knew every inch of the park. And as she ran her thoughts kept on well ahead.
She had started with the definite idea of leaving the place, but without the slightest idea of how that was to be accomplished. Like a frightened rabbit running an enclosure, she sought in vain for some unheard-of opening,—some breach in the wall, some projections by which she might scale the frowning barrier.