Sarah’s cries had attracted a crowd, and much confused Rosine hurried the child into the concierge’s room, and was there overwhelmed by the old nurse’s explanations.
Something seemed to tell Sarah that she was not to be taken away at that moment.
“Oh, take me with you—take me with you! I shall die here!”
It was the cry of a desperate child fighting for her life, and it visibly wrenched at the heart of Tante Rosine. Yet—take her with her? How could she? What would her friend, the companion whom she lived with and who paid for her fine gowns and hats, say, if she brought home this little child of the gutter?
“Well,” she conceded, as the woe-begone child clung convulsively to her skirt, “I will come back to-morrow, and take you away.”
But with that curious intuition that characterises most children, Sarah sensed that she was about to be abandoned for a third time. She flung herself on the bed, sobbing, as her nurse accompanied her aunt down the stairs to the street below, where a fine equipage of boxwood and plush, prancing horses and liveried footmen was in waiting.
Rosine got into her carriage, dabbing a lace handkerchief at her eyes. She had a tender heart and was firmly resolved to write to Youle at once—Julie was in London—and make her take her child.
The footman regained his seat, the coachman clucked to his horses and the equipage moved away. But before it had gone two feet there was a heartrending wail and shriek, followed by a chorus of affrighted shouts, and a body came hurtling past the coach to the pavement. It was Sarah. The child had attempted to jump from the tiny first-floor window into the coach as it passed.
When Sarah awoke she found herself in a great, clean bed, surrounded by kind faces. She was at the home of her aunt in the rue St. Honoré. She had a double fracture of her right arm, and a sprained left ankle.
Julie, who was sent for immediately, arrived three days later, together with numerous other members of Sarah’s family. For the first time in her brief existence, Sarah found herself a person of importance.