O Heaven, her mother, in forsaking her, had pushed her with such force that she might have fallen to the floor.  The thought came back to her with anguish; she again seemed to feel the pain of that outrage on her wrists and shoulders.  Why had she been struck?  She had been good, and had nothing to reproach herself with.  She was usually spoken to with such gentleness that the punishment she had received awoke feelings of indignation within her.  She was thrilled by a sensation of childish fear, as in the old times when she was threatened with the approach of the wolf, and looked for it and saw it not:  it was lingering in some shady corner, with many other things that were going to overwhelm her.  However, she was full of suspicion; her face paled and swelled with jealous fury.  Of a sudden, the thought that her mother must love those whom she had gone to see far more than she loved her came upon her with such crushing force that her little hands clutched her bosom.  She knew it now; yes, her mother was false to her.

Over Paris a great sorrow seemed to be brooding, pending the arrival of a fresh squall.  A murmur travelled through the darkened air, and heavy clouds were hovering overhead.  Jeanne, still at the window, was convulsed by another fit of coughing; but in the chill she experienced she felt herself revenged; she would willingly have had her illness return.  With her hands pressed against her bosom, she grew conscious of some pain growing more intense within her.  It was an agony to which her body abandoned itself.  She trembled with fear, and did not again venture to turn round; she felt quite cold at the idea of glancing into the room any more.  To be little means to be without strength.  What could this new complaint be which filled her with mingled shame and bitter pleasure?  With stiffened body, she sat there as if waiting —­every one of her pure and innocent limbs in an agony of revulsion.  From the innermost recesses of her being all her woman’s feelings were aroused, and there darted through her a pang, as though she had received a blow from a distance.  Then with failing heart she cried out chokingly:  “Mamma! mamma!” No one could have known whether she called to her mother for aid, or whether she accused her of having inflicted on her the pain which seemed to be killing her.

At that moment the tempest burst.  Through the deep and ominous stillness the wind howled over the city, which was shrouded in darkness; and afterwards there came a long-continued crashing —­window-shutters beating to and fro, slates flying, chimney-tops and gutter-pipes rattling on to the pavements.  For a few seconds a calm ensued; then there blew another gust, which swept along with such mighty strength that the ocean of roofs seemed convulsed, tossing about in waves, and then disappearing in a whirlpool.  For a moment chaos reigned.  Some enormous clouds, like huge blots of ink, swept through a host of smaller ones, which were scattered and floated like shreds