She met her servant Jeanne at the entrance of the road, and gave up the donkey-cart to her care. Then she went on sorrowfully and silently to find Marie. The door stood ajar, just as she had left it. She went in more quietly than usual, but Marie heard her. The girl sat just where her mother had left her: the loaf of bread lay untouched. It was plain that Marie had gone without breakfast. Her face was very pale, and her eyes fixed strainingly on her mother, but she did not speak.
Madame Famette's vexation had made her cross, and Marie's pale face increased her trouble: "How naughty thou art then, Marie! I set thee a knife and a plate: thou hadst but to stretch out thy hand. Ciel! but the market tires!" She cut a slice of bread for her daughter, and then she seated herself.
"Mother"—Marie bent forward and shaded her eyes with her hand—"didst thou see Léon Roussel?"
Madame's shoulders went up to her ears in a heave of disgust: "Thou mayest as well know it, Marie: Léon Roussel is promised to Elise Lesage, and they were together in the market. See what thy folly has caused!"
But Marie scarcely heard her mother's reproaches. The blood flew up to her face, and then it left her paler than before. She bent lower—lower yet, until she overbalanced and fell like a crushed lily at her mother's feet.
IV.
"How is Marie Famette?" Monsieur Houlard the tailor asks of Monsieur Guéroult the doctor of Aubette, as he meets him hurrying through the Rue de la Boucherie.
"She is better, the poor child! but she must be careful this winter." Then, seeing Houlard look anxious, the good doctor says, "But she is so far better that I have discontinued my visits: I have given Marie leave to come to Aubette."
"That is good news," says Houlard as the doctor shoots past him, and the tailor tells the next person he meets that Marie Famette is as well as ever, and is coming to market as usual.
It is Léon Roussel to whom he tells this, and Monsieur Houlard is pained at the young man's want of interest.