"Find a good home for her, monsieur," she said, "a home where she may at least be safe while you are away campaigning. Nay," she continued, "if I might make so bold, meaning no offence, find a new mother for her. It would be a sad life for her even though monsieur followed a stay-at-home existence; 'twill be doubly hard when you are separated from her."
But St. Georges only shook his head and said mournfully there was no other wife for him; a statement from which she dissented vehemently. Then she asked:
"Does monsieur know of any one in Paris to whom the little Dorine might be confided? If not," she continued—"she intended no liberty!—she could recommend one with whom it would always be safe. A woman of Dijon like herself, married and settled in Paris; married, indeed, to a cousin of her late husband, who, rest his soul! had been dead eighteen months. This woman's husband was a mercer in a large way of business in the Rue de Timoleon, lived well, and had children of his own; it would be an abri for the child if monsieur cared to consider it."
"Care to consider it!" exclaimed St. Georges, "why, it is the very thing I should wish." Then he paused a moment, reflecting deeply and looking round the kitchen, as though to see that they were alone, which they were with the exception of the mousquetaire, who sat by the great fire warming himself.
"Hark you, dame," he said, lowering his voice a little, though not from any fear of the mousquetaire hearing, but more from instinct than anything else. "You have done me one great kindness in being so tender to my poor little motherless babe. Will you answer me, therefore, a question? Will—will—suppose, I would say, that I wished the whereabouts of this, my child, unknown to any one—would she be safe in the house of this mercer you speak of? Also—if you—should be asked by any one—high or low, here in Dijon—if, par hasard, you know, or could guess, had indeed the faintest suspicion, where that little child might be—would you hold your peace? Would you let this be a secret locked only in your own honest heart?"
"Would I? Ay, monsieur, I would! Your child has slept with my little fillettes; when I went to arouse them ere dawn they all lay cheek to cheek, and with their arms entwined. She is as one of mine, therefore; she shall be as sacred. Je le jure."
"Give me your friend's name and address," St. Georges made answer. "What you have said is enough. I trust you as I should have trusted her dead mother." And he took his tablets from his pouch as he spoke.
"Write," said the woman, "the name of Le Sieur Blecy, 5 Rue de Timoleon. That is sufficient. His wife Susanne will arrange with you for the safety of the little one when she knows that I have sent you."
"But," exclaimed St. Georges, "can you give me no line, no word, to her or him? Surely she will not accept me on my own assurances. Besides, 'tis much to ask. She will scarcely receive my child into her house, into her family, without some proofs from you."
"How," exclaimed the woman, "can I send such proof? I can not write—alas! I can not even read." She blushed as she spoke—though truly she need not have done so, since in all Burgundy, in the days of Louis le Dieudonné, not one in a hundred could do more than she—and he himself reddened at having so put her to shame, and muttered some sort of excuse under his thick mustache.