Madame Georges shook her head sorrowfully, and said, in bitter accents, "My poor son would be now twenty years old!"
"Say he is that age—"
"God hear you, and grant it, M. Rodolph."
"He will hear, I fully believe. Yesterday I went (but in vain) to find a certain fellow called Bras Rouge who might, perhaps, have given me some information about your son. Coming away from this Bras Rouge's abode, after a struggle in which I was engaged, I met with this unfortunate girl—"
"Alas! but your kind endeavour in my behalf has thrown in your way another unfortunate being, M. Rodolph."
"You have no intelligence from Rochefort?"
"None," said Madame Georges, shuddering, and in a low voice.
"So much the better! We can no longer doubt but that the monster met his death in the attempt to escape from the—"
Rodolph hesitated to pronounce the horrible word.
"From the Bagne? Oh, say it!—the Bagne!" exclaimed the wretched woman with horror, and almost frantic as she spoke. "The father of my child! Ah! if the unhappy boy still lives—if, like me, he has not changed his name—oh, shame! shame! And yet it may be nothing: his father has, perhaps, carried out his horrid threat! What has he done with my boy? Why did he tear him from me?"