"Good evening!" said she, lifting yet higher the sputtering lamp in her hand; "what do you desire?"
"I am unable to go on," murmured La Bretonne, in a voice broken by a sob; "the city is far, and if you will lodge me for the night, you will do me a service.... I have money; I will pay you for the trouble."
"Enter," replied the other, after a moment's hesitancy; "but why," continued she, in a tone more curious than suspicious, "did you not sleep at Auberive?"
"They would not give me a lodging," lowering her blue eyes and taken with a sudden scruple, "be—because, see you, I come from the Maison Centrale."
"So! the Maison Centrale! but no matter—enter—I fear nothing, having known only misery. Moreover, I've a conscience against turning a Christian from the door on a night like this. I'll give you a bed and a slice of cheese."
And she pulled from the eaves some bundles of dried heather and spread them as a pallet in the corner by the fire.
"Do you live here alone?" demanded La Bretonne, timidly.
"Yes, with my gâchette, going on seven years now. I earn our living by working in the wood."
"Your man, then, is dead?"
"Yes," said the other bruskly, "the gâchette has no father. Briefly, to each his sorrow! But come, behold your straw, and two or three potatoes left from supper. It is all I can offer you—"