The scene in the workroom, the revelation of Norine’s condition, the fate awaiting the girl driven away into the bleak, icy streets, had revived all his own poignant worries with respect to Valerie.  Mathieu had already heard of the latter’s trouble from his wife, and he speedily grasped the accountant’s meaning.  It vaguely seemed to him also that Morange was yielding to the same unreasoning despair as Valerie, and was almost willing that she should take the desperate course which she had hinted to Marianne.  But it was a very serious matter, and Mathieu did not wish to be in any way mixed up in it.  Having tried his best to pacify the cashier, he sought forgetfulness of these painful incidents in his work.

That afternoon, however, a little girl, Cecile Moineaud, the old fitter’s youngest daughter, slipped into his office, with a message from her mother, beseeching him to speak with her.  He readily understood that the woman wished to see him respecting Norine, and in his usual compassionate way he consented to go.  The interview took place in one of the adjacent streets, down which the cold winter wind was blowing.  La Moineaude was there with Norine and another little girl of hers, Irma, a child eight years of age.  Both Norine and her mother wept abundantly while begging Mathieu to help them.  He alone knew the whole truth, and was in a position to approach Beauchene on the subject.  La Moineaude was firmly determined to say nothing to her husband.  She trembled for his future and that of her son Alfred, who was now employed at the works; for there was no telling what might happen if Beauchene’s name should be mentioned.  Life was indeed hard enough already, and what would become of them all should the family bread-winners be turned away from the factory?  Norine certainly had no legal claim on Beauchene, the law being peremptory on that point; but, now that she had lost her employment, and was driven from home by her father, could he leave her to die of want in the streets?  The girl tried to enforce her moral claim by asserting that she had always been virtuous before meeting Beauchene.  In any case, her lot remained a very hard one.  That Beauchene was the father of her child there could be no doubt; and at last Mathieu, without promising success, told the mother that he would do all he could in the matter.

He kept his word that same afternoon, and after a great deal of difficulty he succeeded.  At first Beauchene fumed, stormed, denied, equivocated, almost blamed Mathieu for interfering, talked too of blackmail, and put on all sorts of high and mighty airs.  But at heart the matter greatly worried him.  What if Norine or her mother should go to his wife?  Constance might close her eyes as long as she simply suspected things, but if complaints were formally, openly made to her, there would be a terrible scandal.  On the other hand, however, should he do anything for the girl, it would become known, and everybody would regard him as responsible.  And then there would be no end to what he called the blackmailing.