"How did it happen?" asked M. Vulfran.
"La Tiburce was asleep, drunk. She is still in that condition. The biggest of the children were playing with the matches. When the fire began to flare up some of the children got out, and La Tiburce woke up. She is so drunk she got out herself but left the little ones in the cradle."
The sound of cries and loud talking could be heard in the yard. M. Vulfran wanted to go in.
"Don't go in there, sir," said Fabry. "The mothers whose two children were suffocated are carrying on pretty badly."
"Who are they?"
"Two women who work in your factory."
"I must speak to them."
Leaning on Perrine's shoulder, he told her to guide him. Preceded by Fabry, who made way for them, they went into the yard where the firemen were turning the hose on the house as the flames burst forth in a crackling sound.
In a far-off corner several women stood round the two mothers who were crying. Fabry brushed aside the group. M. Vulfran went up to the bereaved parents, who sat with their dead children on their knees. Then one of the women, who thought perhaps that a supreme help had come, looked up with a gleam of hope in her eyes. When she recognized M. Vulfran she raised her arm to him threateningly.
"Ah," she cried, "come and see for yourself what they do to our babies while we are sweating and killing ourselves for you. Can you give us back their lives? Oh, my little boy."