"Nor is it likely to be!" scoffed Martine—"I thought you had given up all that Church-nonsense long ago."
"Nay—nay—not altogether,"—murmured the old woman timidly—"I am very old,—and one never knows—there may be truth in some of it. It is the burning and the roasting in hell that I think of,—you know that is very likely to happen, Martine!—because you see, in this life we have nothing but trouble,—so whoever made us must like to see us suffering;—it must be a pleasure to God, and so it is sure to go on and on always. And I am afraid!—and if a candle now and then to St. Joseph would help matters, I am not the one to grudge it,—it is better to burn a candle than burn one's self!"
Martine laughed loudly, but made no answer. She could not waste her time arguing against the ridiculous superstitions of an old creature who was so steeped in ignorance as to think that a votive candle could rescue her soul from a possible hell. She went on knitting in silence till a sudden shadow came between her and the sunlight, and a girl's voice, harsh, yet with a certain broken sweetness in it, said—
"A fine morning's killing, aye! All their necks wrung,—all dead birds! Once they could fly—fly and swim! Fly and swim! All dead now—and sold cheap in the open market!"
A shrill laugh finished this outburst, but Martine knew who it was that spoke, and maintained her equanimity.
"Is that you again, Marguerite?" she said, not unkindly—"You will tire yourself to death wandering about the streets all day."
Marguerite Valmond, "la folle" as she was called by the townsfolk, shook her head and smiled cunningly. She was a tall girl, with black hair disordered and falling loosely about her pale face,—her eyes were dark and lustrous, but wild, and with a hunted expression in them,—and her dress was composed of the strangest remnants of oddly assorted materials and colours pinned about her without any order or symmetry, the very idea of decent clothing being hardly considered, as her bosom was half exposed and her legs were bare. She wore no head-covering, and her whole aspect was that of one who had suddenly awakened from a hideous dream and was striving to forget its horrors.
"I shall never be tired!" she said—"If I could be tired I should sleep,—but I never sleep! I am looking for HIM, you know!—it was at the fair I lost him—you remember the great fair? And when I find him I shall kill him! It is quite easy to kill—you take a sharp glittering thing, so!" and she snatched up a knife that lay on Martine's counter—"And you plunge it—so!" and she struck it down with singular fury through the breast of one of the "dead birds" which were Martine's stock-in-trade. Then she threw the knife on the ground—rubbed her hands together, tossed her head, and laughed again—"That is how I shall do it when I meet him!"
Martine said nothing. She simply removed the one stabbed bird from among the others, and setting it aside, picked up the knife from the ground and went on knitting as calmly as ever.
"I am going to see the Archbishop," proceeded Marguerite, tossing back her dishevelled locks and making one or two fantastic dance-steps as she spoke—"The great Archbishop of this wonderful city of Rouen! I want to ask him how it happened that God made men. It was a mistake which He must be sorry for! The Archbishop knows everything;—he will tell me about it. Ah!—what a beautiful mistake is the Archbishop himself!—and how soon women find it out! Bon jour, Martine!"