[Illustration: THE INSPECTION OF THE DORMITORY]
"For what has she been confined?"
"She is guilty of being found on the Champs Elysees in the evening. As it is forbidden her class, under very severe penalties, to frequent, either day or night, certain places, and the Champs Elysees is among the number of these prohibited places, she was arrested."
"And she appears interesting to you?"
"I have never seen more regular or more ingenuous features. Imagine, my lady, a picture of the Virgin. What gave still more to her appearance a most modest expression was, that when she came here she was dressed like a peasant girl of the environs of Paris."
"She is, then, a country girl?"
"No, my lady. The inspectors recognized her. She lived in a horrible house in the city, from which she was absent two or three months but as she had not her name erased from the police registers, she remained under the control of the officers, who sent her here."
"But perhaps she left Paris to endeavor to reinstate herself?"
"I think so. I felt at once interested in her. I interrogated her as to the past; I asked her if she came from the country, telling her to be of good cheer, if, as I hoped, she wished to return to the paths of virtue."
"What did she reply?"