Her mind was full of that terse announcement which she had read, the obituary notice of the notorious thief known in Paris as “The American”—the man whom she loved and who was her husband.
She was thinking, too, of Fil-en-Quatre, the shock-headed, rather uncouth Parisian loafer—the man who had been sentenced to seven years’ hard labour. That meant Cayenne, without a doubt—drudgery at Devil’s Island, that ill-governed penal settlement established by the Republic of France.
She remembered him. Ah, how often he had sympathised with her! How frequently he had uttered cheering words to her in secret, although he had never once betrayed his friend’s real profession, nor had he ever once spoken of the great and fervent affection which he had borne her.
Though he was a thief, a scoundrel of the underworld of Paris, ingenious, unscrupulous, and even dangerous if cornered, he was nevertheless loyal and honest towards his friend, and behaved as a gentleman towards his friend’s wife.
Yes, Adolphe Carlier, though a thief, was still a gentleman in the true sense of the word.
The weeks went by, and poor Jean, a widow in secret—for she told no one of what had occurred—was sent forth daily in the poorer districts of London on her mission to the sick, to whom she carried food and delicacies prepared by the kind hands of the sisters.
The slums she visited in Clerkenwell and other places often reminded her of those last few days of her married life, those days before she parted for ever from “Le Costaud.” Where men feared to venture, and where no police-constable cared to go alone, she went without fear, down into the deepest depths of the unknown underworld of London, and through months she worked hard each day amid the most sordid and poverty-stricken surroundings, returning each night to the convent fagged and hungry. But now that she knew the bitter truth, her whole life was devoted to her work of mercy and to her religious duties. Her sweetness of disposition, her calm patience, her soft voice, and her cheerful manner all endeared her to those whom she tended with such unremitting care.
Thus she passed the long summer days in the stifling slums of London.
So devoted was she, and so hard did she work, that at last a serious illness was threatened, in consequence of which she was sent by the Mother Superior to the West of England branch of the Order, who had a small convent at Babbacombe, near Torquay, and in the latter town, in better air, she continued her labours.