Notwithstanding her joy at leaving the prison, Fleur-de-Marie could not prevent a shudder at the remembrance of La Chouette and the Maître d'Ecole; recollecting that these two monsters had made her swear not to inform her benefactors of her sad fate.
But these sad thoughts were soon dispelled at the hope of seeing Bouqueval, Madame George, and Rudolph again; to the latter she wished to recommend La Louve and Martial; it even seemed to her that the sentiment which she reproached herself for having felt towards her benefactor, being no longer nourished by sorrow and by solitude, would be calmed and modified as soon as she should resume the rustic occupations which she loved so much to partake with the good and honest inhabitants of the farm.
Astonished at the silence of her companion, of which she did not suspect the cause, she touched her slightly on the shoulder, and said,
"Mont Saint Jean, since I am now free, can I be of any service to you?"
On feeling the hand of La Goualeuse, the prisoner shuddered, let her arms fall, and turned toward the young girl, her face streaming with tears.
"Listen to me, Mont Saint Jean," said Fleur-de Marie, touched at the affection of this poor creature. "I can promise you nothing for yourself, although I know some very charitable people; but for your child it is different; it is innocent of every evil; he, and the persons of whom I speak, would, perhaps, take the charge of it when you can part with it."
"Part from it—never, oh, never!" cried Mont Saint Jean, with warmth.
"What would become of me then, now that I have counted on him?"
"But how will you support it? son or daughter, it must be honest, and for that——"
"It must eat honest bread, is it not so, La Goualeuse? I think so; it is my ambition. I say it to myself every day, thus: on leaving here I shall not let the grass grow under my feet. I will become a rag-picker, a crossing-sweeper, but I'll be correct; one owes that, if not to one's self, at least to one's children, when one has the honor of having any," said she with a kind of pride. "And who will take care of your child while you work?" answered La Goualeuse; "would it not be better, if that is possible, as I hope it is, to place it in the country with some good people, who would make it a good farmer's girl or a plowboy? You can come from time to time to see it, and some day, perhaps, you would find the means to remain altogether—in the country it costs so little to live."
"But to part with it, to part with it! All my joy is in it. I, who have no one to love me!" "You must think more for it than for yourself, my poor Mont Saint Jean; in two or three days I will write to Madame Armand, and if the demand I mean to make in favor of your child succeeds, you will never have occasion to say again, what you said just now, 'Alas! what will become of it?'"