"Madame Justin, did you have the goodness to go up and see if my godmother wanted anything?"
"Yes, Mlle. Mariette, I took her milk up to her, but she was in such a bad humour that she treated me like a dog. Had it not been for obliging you, I would have let the old crosspatch alone, I can tell you."
"You must not be too hard on her, Madame Justin; she suffers so much."
"Oh, you are always making excuses for her, I know. It shows how good-hearted you are, but it doesn't prevent your godmother from being a hateful old thing. Poor child, you certainly are having your purgatory in advance. If there is no paradise for you hereafter you will certainly be cheated out of your rightful dues. But wait a minute, I have a letter for you."
"A letter?" exclaimed Mariette, her heart throbbing with relief and hope, "a letter from some one out of the city?"
"Yes, mademoiselle, it is postmarked Dreux, and there are six sous to pay on it. Here it is, and see, on the corner of the envelope the writer has put the words, 'Very urgent.'"
Mariette seized the letter and slipped it into her bosom; then, drawing out her little purse again, she took from it her last ten sous piece and paid the woman, after which she hastened up to her room, pleased and at the same time anxious and sad; pleased at having received a letter from Louis, anxious concerning the significance of those words, "Very urgent," written in a corner of the envelope, and sad because several hours must elapse before she would know the contents of the letter, for she dared not absent herself again after having left her godmother alone so long.
It was with a sort of dread that she finally opened the door of the room on the fifth floor that she occupied with her godmother. The poor woman was lying on the only bed the two women possessed. A thin mattress now rolled up out of the way in a corner, but laid on the floor at night, served as a bed for Mariette. A table, an old bureau, two chairs, a few cooking utensils hanging on the wall near the fireplace, were the only articles of furniture in the dimly lighted room, but everything was scrupulously clean.
Madame Lacombe—for that was the invalid's name—was a tall, frightfully pale, and emaciated woman, about fifty years of age, with a peevish, disagreeable face. Bent nearly double in the bed, one could see of her only her mutilated arm swathed in bandages, and her irascible face, surrounded by an old cap from which a wisp of gray hair crept out here and there, while her bluish lips were continually distorted by a bitter and sardonic smile.
Madame Lacombe seemed to be suffering greatly. At all events she was in an execrable temper, and her hollow eyes gleamed ominously. Making an effort to turn herself in bed, so as to get a look at her godchild, she exclaimed, wrathfully: