She seemed to feel the unvoiced question which quivered on the lips of Papa Labesse, and continued, presently,—
"He never married me. Not that I cared for that. I loved him, thou seest, and when one loves one thinks not of little things. No, I was happy so. But now—last week he left me. He has gone back to La Trompette. He gave me a hundred sous. I think he was sorry to go."
A faint smile touched the corners of her lips.
"Pauvre Bombiste!" she added. "It is one who does not know his own heart!"
And this again is unknowable mystery,—the gentle word of the woman for the man!
"He is mowing on the fortifs this week," went on Marcelle, wistfully echoing her lover's slang, "and La Trompette is with him. I saw them but to-day, from the porte de Clichy. So, since they are together, for me it is finished. I have come back to the Butte, Papa Labesse—come back to die. For now there is none to receive me, save Paris. She will take me, thou knowest, she who has made me like herself."
That was all. There was no word, now at the end, of Bombiste Fremier, except that he did not know his own heart,—no word of the days without food, the long nights of following him from wineshop to wineshop, perhaps to be refused at last the wretched shelter of his little room; no word of curses, blows, and insults worse than either.
When she was silent again Papa Labesse drew her gently away from the brink of the bluff.
"My pigeon," he said, "there is one to receive thee. Thou wilt come to the little shop—pas?—and rest there upon my bed. For I have no need of sleep, I. And in the morning thou wilt be strong again, and well. Come, my pigeon!"
And silently, hand in hand, they retraced the familiar way, down the long, curving incline of the rue Lepic, and the door of the little joiner's shop closed behind them.