“She must work,” said Mr. Roquevillard.
“Since her sentence she can’t find a place. Who wants a thief?”
The lawyer pleaded the circumstances of her case in extenuation. “She stole from thoughtlessness, coquetry, vanity. She’s not really bad. At her age she’ll turn over a new leaf. What does she live on?”
“And what do you suppose she lives off? Men, of course.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because once, at first, I sent her a little money order to help her. She sent it back to me, with another, a big one, which I burned up.”
“You burned it?”
“Yes, Master Francis. It was the wages of shame.”
And her anger straightened up her peasant form once more, making it seem menacing in the full light, her hands clenched like an accusing destiny.
“I don’t see how I ever had her. There have never been anything but good people in our family. I’m ashamed now.”