"Where are my clothes?" she muttered to the serving-woman who watched beside her. "It is broad day;—I must go on;—to Paris."
They craved her to wear the costly and broidered stuffs strewn around her; masterpieces of many an Eastern and Southern loom; but she put them all aside in derision and impatience, drawing around her with a proud loving action the folds of her own poor garments. Weather-stained, torn by bush and brier, soaked with night-dew, and discolored by the dye of many a crushed flower and bruised berry of the fields and woods, she yet would not have exchanged these poor shreds of woven flax and goats' wool against imperial robes, for, poor though they were, they were the symbols of her independence and her liberty.
The women tended her gently, and pressed on her many rare and fair things, but she would not have them; she took a cup of milk, and passed out into the larger chamber.
She was troubled and bewildered, but she had no fear; for she was too innocent, too wearied, and too desperate with that deathless courage, which, having borne the worst that fate can do, can know no dread.
She stood with her arms folded on her breast, drawing together the tattered folds of the tunic, gazing at the riches and the luxury, and the blended colors of the room. So softly that she never heard his footfall, the old man entered behind her, and came to the hearth, and looked on her.
"You are better?" he asked. "Are you better, Folle-Farine?"
She looked up, and met the eyes of Sartorian. They smiled again on her with the smile of the Red Mouse.
The one passion which consumed her was stronger than any fear or any other memory: she only thought——this man must know?
She sprang forward and grasped his arm with both hands, with the seizure of a tigress; her passionate eyes searched his face; her voice came hard and fast.
"What have you done?—is he living or dead?—you must know?"