Veronique now received her friends in her bedroom, where they played whist. For several days past Madame Graslin had not left the house, and she seemed to be tormented by several of those caprices attributed to women in her condition. Her mother came to see her almost every day, and the two women remained for hours in consultation.
It was nine o’clock, and the card tables were still without players, for every one was talking of the murder. Monsieur de Grandville entered the room.
“We have arrested the murderer of old Pingret,” he said, joyfully.
“Who is it?” was asked on all sides.
“A porcelain workman; a man whose character has always been excellent, and who was in a fair way to make his fortune. He worked in your husband’s old factory,” added Monsieur de Grandville, turning to Madame Graslin.
“What is his name?” asked Veronique, in a weak voice.
“Jean-Francois Tascheron.”
“Unhappy man!” she answered. “Yes, I have often seen him; my poor father recommended him to my care as some one to be looked after.”
“He left the factory before Sauviat’s death,” said her mother, “and went to that of Messrs. Philippart, who offered him higher wages— But my daughter is scarcely well enough for this exciting conversation,” she added, calling attention to Madame Graslin, whose face was as white as her sheets.
After that evening Mere Sauviat gave up her own home, and came, in spite of her sixty-six years, to stay with her daughter and nurse her through her confinement. She never left the room; Madame Graslin’s friends found the old woman always at the bed’s head busy with her eternal knitting,—brooding over Veronique as she did when the girl had the small-pox, answering questions for her and often refusing to admit visitors. The maternal and filial love of mother and daughter was so well known in Limoges that these actions of Madame Sauviat caused no comment.