"One day, at the Tuileries—she was only sixteen—a circle was formed round her . . . by people who looked at her and wondered at her loveliness. Her girl friends laughed, happy at seeing her admired . . . .
"Open her right hand, François. You will see a long, white scar in the middle of the palm. When she was quite a little girl, she ran the point of an iron railing into her hand . . . ."
But the last pages were not written for the boy and had certainly not been read by him. The writer's love was no longer disguised beneath admiring phrases. It displayed itself without reserve, ardent, exalted, suffering, quivering with hope, though always respectful.
Véronique closed the book. She could read no more.
"Yes, I confess, All's Well," she said to the dog, who was already sitting up, "my eyes are wet with tears. Devoid of feminine weaknesses as I am, I will tell you what I would say to nobody else: that really touches me. Yes, I must try to recall the unknown features of the man who loves me like this . . . some friend of my childhood whose affection I never suspected and whose name has not left even a trace in my memory."
She drew the dog to her:
"Two kind hearts, are they not, All's Well? Neither the master nor the pupil is capable of the crimes which I saw them commit. If they are the accomplices of our enemies here, they are so in spite of themselves and without knowing it. I cannot believe in philtres and incantations and plants which deprive you of your reason. But, all the same, there is something, isn't there, you dear little dog? The boy who planted veronicas round the Calvary of Flowers and who wrote, 'Mother's flowers,' is not guilty, is he? And Honorine was right, when she spoke of a fit of madness, and he will come back to look for me, won't he? Stéphane and he are sure to come back."
The hours that went by were full of soothing quiet. Véronique was no longer lonely. The present had no terrors for her; and she had faith in the future.
Next morning, she said to All's Well, whom she had locked up to prevent his running away:
"Will you take me there now my man? Where? Why, to the friend, of course, who sent provisions to Stéphane Maroux. Come along."