The vision had vanished.
She remained bewildered for some minutes. Then she slowly recovered
her composure and started to run away, for fear she might become
insane. She chanced to look at the door against which she had been
leaning and saw there "Poulet's ladder."
All the little notches were there showing the age and growth of her
child. Here was the baron's writing, then hers, a little smaller, and
then Aunt Lison's rather shaky characters. And she seemed to see her
boy of long ago with his fair hair standing before her, leaning his
little forehead against the door while they measured his height.
And she kissed the edge of the door in a frenzy of affection.
But some one was calling her outside. It was Rosalie's voice: "Madame
Jeanne, Madame Jeanne, they are waiting breakfast for you." She went
out in a dream and understood nothing of what they were saying to her.
She ate what they gave her, heard them talking, but about what she
knew not, let them kiss her on the cheeks and kissed them in return
and then got into the carriage.
When they lost sight of the château behind the tall trees she felt a
wrench at her heart, convinced that she had bid a last farewell to her
old home.
When they reached Batteville and just as she was going into her new
house, she saw something white under the door. It was a letter that
the postman had slipped under the door while she was out. She
recognized Paul's writing and opened it, trembling with anxiety. He
wrote:
"My Dear Mother: I have not written sooner because I did not wish you
to make a useless journey to Paris when it was my place to go and see
you. I am just now in great sorrow and in great straits. My wife is
dying after giving birth to a little girl three days ago, and I have
not one sou. I do not know what to do with the child, whom my
janitor's wife is bringing up on the bottle as well as she can, but I
fear I shall lose her. Could you not take charge of it? I absolutely
do not know what to do, and I have no money to put her out to nurse.
Answer by return mail.
"Your son, who loves you,
"Paul."