“Let us see,” she said, feeling for the girl’s hand.
“Oh! let me alone, mother,” said Moïna; “your fingers are cold.”
She turned her head round on the pillow as she spoke, pettishly, but with such engaging grace, that a mother could scarcely have taken it amiss. Just then a wailing cry echoed through the next room, a faint prolonged cry, that must surely have gone to the heart of any woman who heard it.
“Why, if you heard that all night long, why did you not wake me? We should have—”
A deeper moan than any that had gone before it interrupted the Marquise.
“Some one is dying there,” she cried, and hurried out of the room.
“Send Pauline to me!” called Moïna. “I shall get up and dress.”
The Marquise hastened downstairs, and found the landlady in the courtyard with a little group about her, apparently much interested in something that she was telling them.
“Madame, you have put some one in the next room who seems to be very ill indeed—”
“Oh! don’t talk to me about it!” cried the mistress of the house. “I have just sent some one for the mayor. Just imagine it; it is a woman, a poor unfortunate creature that came here last night on foot. She comes from Spain; she has no passport and no money; she was carrying her baby on her back, and the child was dying. I could not refuse to take her in. I went up to see her this morning myself; for when she turned up yesterday, it made me feel dreadfully bad to look at her. Poor soul! she and the child were lying in bed, and both of them at death’s door. ‘Madame,’ says she, pulling a gold ring off her finger, ‘this is all that I have left; take it in payment, it will be enough; I shall not stay here long. Poor little one! we shall die together soon!’ she said, looking at the child. I took her ring, and I asked her who she was, but she never would tell me her name.... I have just sent for the doctor and M. le Maire.”