“Ah, good heaven!” interrupted Madam Cottin, running to bolt the door, “ah, sir, what can I do to assist you?”
“Alas! nothing, madam,” replied Monsieur de Fombelle, “for I have heard your conversation with your nurse, and can ask nothing of you.”
“If it is money you want, alas! I have none, sir! but approach the fire, and pardon me for not having recognized you sooner.”
Her visiter mechanically complied, while he abruptly addressed her.—
“Denounced by the law—pursued, tracked as a wild beast—finding no where an asylum, not even daring to seek one amongst my best friends, I wander in the streets of Paris—and—and—since yesterday I have not tasted food,” speaking with the air of a man with whom hunger stifled the shame of avowing it.
Madam Cottin immediately brought from a cupboard some bread, a pot of preserves, and a bottle of wine, saying as she did so,
“Believe me, this is the best I have.”
And she looked, with tears in her eyes, and a sad heart, upon that old man, whom she had known in better times, so polished, so dignified, so amiable, and so well beloved. He spoke not a word while eating, and when he looked up, at the end of his meal, he saw that she wept.
“Is it for me, or for yourself that you weep?” said he.
“For both of us,” replied Madam Cottin; “for you, that you suffer so much in your old age, and for me, that I am unable to assist a sincere friend of my husband.”