“Come in!” said a voice.
The baron lifted the latch and entered.
The room was small, with un-white-washed walls, but with no other floor than the ground; no ceiling save the thatch that formed the roof.
A bed, a table and two wooden benches constituted the entire furniture.
Seated upon a stool, near the tiny window, sat Marie-Anne, busily at work upon a piece of embroidery.
She had abandoned her former mode of dress, and her costume was that worn by the peasant girls.
When M. d’Escorval entered she rose, and for a moment they remained silently standing, face to face, she apparently calm, he visibly agitated.
He was looking at Marie-Anne; and she seemed to him transfigured. She was much paler and considerably thinner; but her beauty had a strange and touching charm—the sublime radiance of heroic resignation and of duty nobly fulfilled.
Still, remembering his son, he was astonished to see this tranquillity.
“You do not ask me for news of Maurice,” he said, reproachfully.