"You will live for the poor little baby," whispered Aline, her eyes full of tears, but Mme de Coigny shook her head.
"No," she said quietly; "it is over now. To-morrow they will take me away."
She lay a little longer, but did not talk much, and after a while she slipped away to her own mattress, and Aline, listening, could hear that she slept.
In the morning she made no reference to what had passed, but when Aline left the cell to go to Mme de Matigny's room she thought as she passed out that she heard a whispered "Adieu," though on looking round she saw that Mme de Coigny's face was bent over the child, whom she was rocking on her knee.
She went on her way, walking fast, and lifting her skirts carefully, for the passages of the Abbaye were places of indescribable noisomeness. About half-way down, the open door of an empty cell let a little light in upon the filth and confusion, and showed the bestial, empurpled face of a drunken turnkey, who lay all along a bench, sleeping off the previous night's excesses. As Aline hastened, she saw a man come down the corridor, holding feebly to the wall. Opposite the empty cell he paused, catching at the jamb with shaking fingers, and lifting a face which Mademoiselle de Rochambeau recognised with a little cry of shocked surprise.
"M. Cléry!" she exclaimed.
Edmond Cléry could hardly stand, but he forced a pitiful parody of his old, gay laugh and bow.
"Myself," he said, "or at least as much of me as the ague has left."
Just inside the cell was a rough stool, and Aline drew it quickly forward. He sank down gratefully, leaning against the door-post, and closing his eyes for a moment.
"Oh," said Mademoiselle, "how ill you look; you are not fit to walk alone."