"Pardon me," said La Lorraine, "if I have given you pain unconsciously in speaking of your children! Are they, too, ill?"
"Alas! I do not know. What will become of them if I remain here for a week?"
"And your husband?"
"As we are friends together, Lorraine, I will tell you my troubles, as you have told me yours, and that will comfort me. My husband was an excellent workman, but became dissipated, and forsook me and my children, after having sold everything we possessed. I went to work; some good souls aided me, and I began to get easy again, and was bringing up my little family as well as I could, when my husband returned with a vile creature, his mistress, and again stripped me of everything; and so I had to begin all over again."
"Poor Jeanne! You could not help it."
"I ought to have separated myself from him in law,—but, as my brother says, the law is too dear! I went to see my brother one day, and he gave me three francs, which he had collected amongst the prisoners on telling his tales. So I took courage, believing my husband would not return for a very long time, as he had taken all he could from us. But I was mistaken," added the poor creature, with a shudder; "there was my poor Catherine still to take!"
"Your daughter?"
"You will hear—you will hear! Three days ago, as I was at work with my children around me, my husband came in. I saw by his look that he had been drinking. 'I have come for Catherine,' says he. I took my daughter's arm, and I said to Duport, 'Where do you want to take her to?' 'What's that to you? She's my daughter. Let her make up her bundle and come along with me.' At these words my blood ran cold in my veins; for you must know, Lorraine, that that bad woman is still with my husband, and it makes me shudder all over to say it. But so it was; she had long been urging him to earn something by our daughter, who is young and pretty. 'Take away Catherine?' said I to Duport; 'Never! I know what that wicked woman would do with her.' 'I say,' said my husband, whose lips were white with rage, 'do not oppose me or I'll kill you!' and then he seized my daughter by the arm, saying, 'Come along, Catherine!' The poor child threw her arms around my neck, and burst into tears, exclaiming, 'I will stay with mother!' When he saw this, Duport became furious, tore my daughter from me, and hit me a blow in my stomach, which knocked me down; and when I was on the ground—he was very drunk, you may be sure—he trampled on me and hurt me dreadfully. My poor children begged for mercy on their knees,—Catherine, too; and then he said to her, swearing like a lunatic, 'If you will not come with me I'll do for your mother!' I was spitting blood; I felt half dead, and could not move an inch. But I cried to Catherine, 'Let him kill me first!' 'What, you won't be quiet?' said Duport, giving me another kick, which deprived me of all consciousness; and when I returned to myself, I found my two little boys crying bitterly."
"And your daughter?"
"Gone!" exclaimed the unhappy mother, with convulsive sobs. "Yes; gone. My other children told me that their father had beaten them and threatened to finish me. Then the poor girl was quite distracted and embraced me and her brothers, weeping dreadfully; and then my husband dragged her away. Ah, that bad woman was waiting for him on the stairs, I know!"