The old lady had met no one. Her failing sight hindered her from perceiving in the distance a few pedestrians, sparsely scattered like shadows, along the broad road of the faubourg. She was walking bravely through the solitude as if her age were a talisman to guard her from danger; but after passing the Rue des Morts she fancied that she heard the firm, heavy tread of a man coming behind her. The thought seized her mind that she had been listening to it unconsciously for some time. Terrified at the idea of being followed, she tried to walk faster to reach a lighted shop-window, and settle the doubt which thus assailed her. When well beyond the horizontal rays of light thrown across the pavement, she turned abruptly and saw a human form looming through the fog. The indistinct glimpse was enough. She staggered for an instant under the weight of terror, for she no longer doubted that this unknown man had tracked her, step by step, from her home. The hope of escaping such a spy lent strength to her feeble limbs. Incapable of reasoning, she quickened her steps to a run, as if it were possible to escape a man necessarily more agile than she. After running for a few minutes, she reached the shop of a pastry-cook, entered it, and fell, rather than sat, down on a chair which stood before the counter.
As she lifted the creaking latch of the door, a young woman, who was at work on a piece of embroidery, looked up and recognized through the glass panes the antiquated mantle of purple silk which wrapped the old lady, and hastened to pull open a drawer, as if to take from thence something that she had to give her. The action and the expression of the young woman not only implied a wish to get rid of the stranger, as of some one most unwelcome, but she let fall an exclamation of impatience at finding the drawer empty. Then, without looking at the lady, she came rapidly from behind the counter, and went towards the back-shop to call her husband, who appeared at once.
"Where have you put ---- ----?" she asked him, mysteriously, calling his attention to the old lady by a glance, and not concluding her sentence.
Although the pastry-cook could see nothing but the enormous black-silk hood circled with purple ribbons which the stranger wore, he disappeared, with a glance at his wife which seemed to say, "Do you suppose I should leave that on your counter?"
Surprised at the silence and immobility of her customer, the wife came forward, and was seized with a sudden movement of compassion as well as of curiosity when she looked at her. Though the complexion of the old gentlewoman was naturally livid, like that of a person vowed to secret austerities, it was easy to see that some recent alarm had spread an unusual paleness over her features. Her head-covering was so arranged as to hide the hair, whitened no doubt by age, for the cleanly collar of her dress proved that she wore no powder. The concealment of this natural adornment gave to her countenance a sort of conventual severity; but its features were grave and noble. In former days the habits and manners of people of quality were so different from those of all other classes that it was easy to distinguish persons of noble birth. The young shop-woman felt certain, therefore, that the stranger was a ci-devant, and one who had probably belonged to the court.
"Madame?" she said, with involuntary respect, forgetting that the title was proscribed.
The old lady made no answer. Her eyes were fixed on the glass of the shop-window, as if some alarming object were painted upon it.
"What is the matter, citoyenne?" asked the master of the establishment, re-entering, and drawing the attention of his customer to a little cardboard box covered with blue paper, which he held out to her.
"It is nothing, nothing, my friends," she answered in a gentle voice, as she raised her eyes to give the man a thankful look. Seeing a phrygian cap upon his head, a cry escaped her:--"Ah! it is you who have betrayed me!"
The young woman and her husband replied by a deprecating gesture of horror which caused the unknown lady to blush, either for her harsh suspicion or from the relief of feeling it unjust.