"Bon jour, Marguerite!" responded Martine quietly.
Singing to herself, the crazed girl sauntered off. Several of the market women looked after her.
"She killed her child, they say," muttered the old vegetable-seller—"But no one knows—"
"Sh—sh—sh!" hissed Martine angrily—"What one does not know one should not say. Mayhap there never was a child at all. Whatever the wrong was, she has suffered for it;—and if the man who led her astray ever comes nigh her, his life is not worth a centime."
"Rough justice!" said one of the market porters, who had just paused close by to light his pipe.
"Aye, rough justice!" echoed Martine—"When justice is not given to the people, the people take it for themselves! And if a man deals ill by a woman, he has murdered her as surely as if he had put a knife through her;—and 'tis but even payment when he gets the knife into himself. Things in this life are too easy for men and too hard for women; men make the laws for their own convenience, and never a thought of us at all in the making. They are a selfish lot!"
The porter laughed carelessly, and having lit his pipe to his satisfaction went his way.
A great many more customers now came to Martine's stall, and for upwards of an hour there was shrill argument and driving of bargains till she had pretty well cleared her counter of all its stock. Then she sat down again and looked to right and left of the market-place for any sign of the Patoux children returning with her little son, but there was not a glimpse of them anywhere.
"I wonder what they are doing!" she thought—"And I wonder what sort of a Cardinal it is they have taken the child to see! These great princes of the Church care nothing for the poor,—the very Pope allows half Italy to starve while he shuts himself up with his treasures in the Vatican;—what should a great Cardinal care for my poor little Fabien! If the stories of the Christ were true, and one could only take the child to Him, then indeed there might be a chance of cure!—but it is all a lie,—and the worst of the lie is that it would give us all so much comfort and happiness if it were only true! It is like holding out a rope to a drowning man and snatching it away again. And when the rope goes, the sooner one sinks under the waves the better!"