"Alas! yes, madame; La Lorraine is given up; she has not perhaps, a week to live."
Half an hour afterward, Madame d'Harville, accompanied by Saint Rémy, took with her, to her own house, the young orphan, from whom she had concealed the death of her mother.
The same day an agent of Lady d'Harville, after having visited in the Rue de Barillerie the miserable abode of Jeanne Duport, and having received the most favorable accounts of this worthy woman, immediately hired on the Quai de l'École two large rooms and a bedroom; thanks to the resources of the Temple, they were furnished in two hours, and the same evening, Jeanne Duport was removed to this dwelling, where she found her children and an excellent nurse. The same agent was instructed to claim the body of La Lorraine, whenever she should sink under her malady, and have it decently interred. After having installed Claire de Fermont in her apartment, Lady d'Harville set out at once for Asnières, accompanied by Saint Rémy, in order to conduct Fleur-de-Marie to Rudolph.
CHAPTER XXI.
HOPE.
The early days of spring approached, the sun began to resume his power, the sky was pure, the air soft and mild. Fleur-de-Marie, leaning on the arm of La Louve, tried her strength by walking in Dr Griffon's garden. The vivifying warmth of the sun and the action of walking colored with a rosy tint the pale, thin cheeks of Goualeuse; her peasant's costume having been torn in the agitation attending the first assistance that had been rendered her, she wore a dress of dark-blue merino, made loose, and only confined around her delicate and slender waist by a woolen girdle.
"How pleasant the sun is!" said she to La Louve, stopping at the foot of a hedge of green trees exposed to the south, and which surrounded a stone bench. "Will you sit down here a moment, La Louve?"
"Is there any need of asking me if I will?" answered the wife of Martial, shrugging her shoulders.
Then, taking from her neck her shawl, she folded it carefully, knelt down, laid it on the slightly damp gravel of the walk, and said to La Goualeuse:
"Place yourself there."