"Oh, I'll make you find your tongue, and tell who it was took my husband's life!" vociferated the enraged widow, breaking out into a fresh storm, now she felt her party so strong. "You all belong to one gang; and I'm not sure but I saw you among them at the very time and place when the bloody deed was done! Come, come; don't stand there shedding your crocodile tears; you are found out, and may as well leave off shamming any more. Show your face, I say! You are a beauty, ain't you?" And the infuriated woman, suiting the action to the word, violently snatched the two hands of poor Fleur-de-Marie from the pale and grief-worn countenance they concealed, and down which tears were fast streaming.
The Goualeuse, sinking under a sense of shame, and terrified at finding herself thus at the mercy of her persecutors, joined her hands, and, turning towards the milk-woman her supplicating and timid looks, she said, in a gentle voice:
"Indeed, indeed, madam, I have been at the farm of Bouqueval these last two months. How could I, then, have been witness to the dreadful misfortune you speak of? And—"
The faint tones of Fleur-de-Marie's voice were drowned in the loud uproarious cries of the surrounding multitude.
"Let us take her before the mayor! She can speak; and she shall, too, to some purpose. March, march, my fine madam! On with you!"
So saying, the menacing crowd pressed upon the poor girl, who, mechanically crossing her hands on her bosom, looked eagerly around, as though in search of help.
"Oh," cried the milk-woman, "you need not stare about in that wild way. Mlle. Clara is not here now to take your part. You don't slip through my fingers, I promise you!"
"Alas! madam," uttered Fleur-de-Marie, trembling violently, "I seek not to escape from you. Be assured, I am both ready and willing to answer all the questions put to me, if I can be of any service to you by so doing. But what harm have I done to these people, who surround and threaten me in this manner?"
"What have you done?" repeated a number of voices, "why, you have dared to stick yourself up with our betters, when we, who were worth thousands more than such as you, were made to keep our distance,—that's what you have done!"
"And what right had you to cause this poor woman to be turned away with her fatherless children?" cried another.