“Ah, I remember,” she said at length. “Yes, I remember the soldiers who dragged me here, and him who commanded.... And Maurice––was he too condemned? Alas, poor Louise––my last sight of her showed her in the power of vile, unscrupulous wretches! Oh, dear God, what have I done to be crushed like this!”
She dropped, weeping and wailing, to the floor.
“Sister,” said the Doctor, turning away to hide his tears, “this is not a case for my care. You must be the physician here.”
“I know virtue and innocence when I see it, surely this child has done nothing worthy of a term at Salpetriere!” replied the kind Genevieve softly, lifting up the stricken girl and embracing her.
“Come, dear, you must rest yet a little longer in order to acquire the full strength so as to be able to tell me everything. Assuredly we will help you!”
In the course of convalescence Henriette told her complete story to Sister Genevieve. The narrative included the girls’ journey to 94 Paris, her kidnapping and rescue, the disappearance of Louise, de Vaudrey’s suit and the objections of his family, the recognition of her sister as the Countess’s long-lost daughter, Louise’s recapture by the beggars, and the peremptory act of the Police Prefect whereby mother and daughter, and beloved foster-sisters, were cruelly parted, and Henriette branded with the mark of the fallen woman by incarceration in La Salpetriere.
Sister Genevieve was strangely moved by it, as was the Doctor to whom she repeated it.
“Against the will of the Police Prefect we can do nothing!” said the Doctor, soberly. “If only his wrath has cooled, we may possibly get her term shortened––”
“What monstrous wickedness!” interrupted the Sister, ordinarily mild and loyal, but worked up to near-democracy by these and other injustices. “To imprison a pure girl––her only offence a nobleman’s honorable suit and her own ceaseless search for her blind sister, lost in the streets of Paris!”