"No," she answered, looking up at him now. "I do not value it. Yet, they say, 'tis to such as I am that death never comes."
"But, ere long, if you survive this visitation, you may--you shall--be free. I will charge myself with your freedom."
"Free!" she answered, her eyes fixed on him with so sad a look that, instinctively, he turned away. There was something in this woman's life, he understood, which it was not for him to attempt to probe.
Left in peace by the Sheriff, Marion continued her work, following close by the cart; yet bidding the man who led the horse to halt at intervals wherever she found some poor body with distorted features which told only too plainly that the last agony had been experienced; halting herself sometimes to be of assistance to those who were still alive. But always saying over and over again the words, "Free! Free!"
Free! Of what use was freedom now to her? What! Supposing she were free to-night, to-morrow, what should she do with that freedom? Laure wanted her no more, she would not miss her if she never went back to the Rue de la Bourse; she had her husband now, the man whom, she acknowledged, she had learned to love. Therefore, Marion resolved that she would never go back. Never! Of that she was determined. She would but be an incubus, be only in the way of their love. She would never go back. Not even if the pestilence spared her, which, she hoped, it might not do.
They had come by now to the street of the Barefooted Carmelites--a street in which she perceived that there were no dead--or, only one, a woman lying on one side of it. And here, strong as she was, she felt that she must rest. Her limbs trembled beneath her--from fatigue and want of sufficient nourishment, she thought, not daring to hope that already the fever had stolen into her veins and that a better, surer freedom than the one the Sheriff had suggested might be near at hand. He, that Sheriff, had left them by now to attend to other duties in the city, therefore there was at this time no living person with her but the carman, who, with his ghastly burdens in his cart, walked ahead of her.
"I must rest here," she said to him, "a little while. See, there is a fountain in the street. We will drink," and she went towards the fountain, which was represented by a statue of Cybele, from out of whose bunch of keys the water gushed in half a dozen streams.
"Drink not," the carman exclaimed, warningly. "They say the source is impregnated. All the water of Marseilles is poisonous now. Beware!"
"Bah! It must come from the bowels of the earth. There are no infected bodies there. And," she muttered to herself, "even though there were I still would drink." Whereon she drank, then sat down on the base of the statue, which was large and spacious and would have furnished a dozen persons with seats.
Presently, still sitting there--she saw come down the street a number of men, some of them galley slaves, two of them officers. Then, when all had advanced almost to where Marion sat observing them, one of the latter drew from his pocket a list and began to read out several names, while giving the convicts instructions as to what each had to do. But what truly surprised Marion was that, behind all these men there came some others leading the horses which drew two carts--carts not filled with dead, but the one with mortar and the other with bricks.