She passed her days wandering about, waiting for Rosalie's answer, not
knowing what to do, how to kill the melancholy, interminable hours,
having no one to whom she could say an affectionate word, no one who
knew her sorrow. She now longed to return home to her little house at
the side of the lonely high road. A few days before she thought she
could not live there, she was so overcome with grief, and now she felt
that she could never live anywhere else but there where her serious
character had been formed.
One evening the letter at last came, enclosing two hundred francs.
Rosalie wrote:
"Madame Jeanne: Come back at once, for I shall not send you any more.
As for M. Paul, it is I who will go and get him when we know where he
is.
"With respect, your servant,
"Rosalie."
Jeanne set out for Batteville one very cold, snowy morning.
[CHAPTER XIV]
LIGHT AT EVENTIDE
Jeanne never went out now, never stirred about. She rose at the same
hour every day, looked out at the weather and then went downstairs and
sat before the parlor fire.
She would remain for days motionless, gazing into the fire, thinking
of nothing in particular. It would grow dark before she stirred,
except to put a fresh log on the fire. Rosalie would then bring in the
lamp and exclaim: "Come, Madame Jeanne, you must stir about or you
will have no appetite again this evening."