"You will not forget my name, Commandant de la Miraudière, my dear. Madame Jourdan knows my address."
After which he disappeared.
"Ah, godmother," exclaimed the girl, returning to the invalid, and embracing her effusively, "how nobly you defended me!"
"Yes," responded the sick woman, curtly, freeing herself almost roughly from her goddaughter's embrace, "and yet with all these virtues, one perishes of hunger."
"But, godmother—"
"Don't talk any more about it, for heaven's sake!" cried the invalid, angrily. "It is all settled. What is the use of discussing it any further? I have done my duty; you have done yours. I am an honest woman; you are an honest girl. Great good it will do you, and me, too; you may rest assured of that."
"But, godmother, listen to me—"
"We shall be found here some fine morning stiff and cold, you and I, with a pan of charcoal between us. Ah, ha, ha!"
And with a shrill, mirthless laugh, the poor creature, embittered by years of misfortune, and chafing against the scruples that had kept her honest in spite of herself, put an end to the conversation by abruptly turning her back upon her goddaughter.