She forgot that she bore the testimony of her weakness; that pledge of love, of which she was so proud, was, in the eyes of the peasants, a proof of her shame. In villages, people are more severe than in cities; they set great store by innocence, because it is often the only treasure they possess. The good people of Vizille held very austere views on the subject of such falls from virtue: a girl who had been seduced became an object of general contempt, so long as her seducer did not repair her fault before the altar. Perhaps they should have been more indulgent to the dumb girl, who, living in the woods, did not know that she was culpable in yielding to the promptings of her heart. But peasants do not reason; they act in obedience to habit, and often mechanically. They had shown deep interest, so long as she was innocent as well as unfortunate; now that she bore manifest proofs of her weakness, they spurned her, without waiting to inquire whether she was not more unfortunate than before.
At last she reached the village, unable to understand the conduct of the people, having no idea why the young girls fled at her approach without deigning to answer her signs, or why their parents stared at her with a stern, disdainful air.
She knocked at the door of a cottage, the owners of which were friends of Marguerite. The woman who opened the door made a gesture of surprise when she saw her, then drove her away from the house. Sister Anne tried to insist and to make her understand the loss she had met with; but, refusing to notice her signs, the woman pushed her into the street, where a number of peasants had assembled and stood staring at her.
"How do you dare to come to the village in that state?" asked an old man; "to show your face here and try to get into our houses? You're carrying the token of your shame; you'd do better to hide it in your woods. And you come here and show yourself to our daughters! Do you do it to let them admire your pretty behavior, and set them an example? Off with you, Clotilde's child! you ought to die of shame! Go back to your cabin, clear out with your seducer, but don't come here again among our wives and children!"
Sister Anne could not understand how a person could be guilty for having known love. She gazed at the peasants in surprise; she held out her hands, clasped in entreaty: she tried to make them understand that she had not come to seek their aid for herself. But they did not choose to understand; they turned their backs on her and went into their houses; some escorted her to the outskirts of the village, and did not leave her until they had ordered her never to return.
The poor child was suffocated by the sobs that convulsed her whole body. To be treated so for having loved Frédéric! That thought sustained her courage; it was for him that she was subjected to such humiliation; she would endure everything rather than cease to love him. She returned to her cabin, weeping bitterly. It was dark. Absolute solitude reigned in her poor home, thenceforth the abode of silence. She was utterly alone on earth. Proof against idle terrors, against the childish fear which even the greatest geniuses sometimes feel at sight of death, Sister Anne went to the bed on which Marguerite lay, and, falling on her knees beside it, held out her arms to her protectress, as if to say:
"You would not have spurned me, mother, if I had come before you even guiltier than I am! You would have had pity on me. Your great age, your enfeebled sight, did not permit you to notice my condition; but you would have forgiven me; and they turned me away! Is it by heaping obloquy on the unfortunate that the path of repentance should be pointed out to them?"
She passed the whole night by Marguerite's bed. She prayed with all her heart for her who had been a mother to her; she implored her to protect her still, and during that mournful night Frédéric's image did not disturb her pious occupation.
The next morning, at daybreak, Sister Anne went to the woods to wait for the old shepherd who supplied her with bread in exchange for milk. He soon appeared. He was a man of some sixty years, still strong and well, who had passed most of his life in the forest, and, like Sister Anne, knew almost nothing of what happened in the village, which is the whole world to a woodsman. The girl took him by the hand and seemed to urge him to go with her to the cabin. The old shepherd complied with her entreaty, and she led him to Marguerite's bedside. He shook his head, but did not seem moved: the habit of living the life of a savage sometimes makes men indifferent to the suffering of others. But Sister Anne appealed to him by signs which he could not fail to understand, and the old fellow consented to perform the service she asked at his hands.
She led him into the garden, to the fig-tree under which Marguerite loved to sit, and pointed to the ground: that was where she wished that her adopted mother should rest. The old shepherd soon dug the grave, then carried the old woman's remains thither and covered them with earth. Sister Anne planted a cross by the spot. It was the only monument she could erect to her benefactress's memory; but she would come often to water it with her tears. How many magnificent mausoleums there are whereon no tear was ever shed!