“Serve him right,” said the man brutally.  “Are there more of the brood about?”

“Not a soul.  They lived here alone, these two.”

“Well, we’ll see.”

“No cupboards here,” said a soldier, whose face was bleeding from a bayonet scratch.

“There’s a trap door, though,” said the sergeant, holding the lantern up to the ceiling.  He glanced sharply at Marie, but she remained immovable.  “Humph,” he grumbled, “if he is shot he is out of the way.  Now, friend Porpoise, the other rooms if you please.”

They searched these thoroughly with no better success.  But when they had satisfied themselves and were out again, the sergeant, whose suspicions seemed to have been aroused, flung open the door of the Didiers’ garret, and turned the lantern full upon Marie once more.  She had not moved hand or foot.

“What is that blood?” said the sergeant, pointing to a trail of red drops on the floor.

For answer she silently rolled back her sleeve, and unbandaging her arm, showed a deep cut, from which the blood still oozed.

“Good.  She has no one,” said the man, withdrawing the light.

This, as all the world knows, was in 1871.  Four years afterwards, at the time my story begins, Marie Didier still occupied that attic.  She lived by taking in needlework, and it was sometimes a wonder to the few who knew her, that working so hard as she did, she should remain so poor.  The furniture of her attic I have described, the sole addition she had made to it was the gay chintz which curtained off the alcove with the bed.  She was always ready to do a kindness, but made no acquaintances, and the only persons who ever climbed to her attic were Plon, who made occasional weighty visitations, often discoursed upon his prowess at the time of the Commune; and an idiot girl called Perine, whom Marie one day found crying in the street; she had no father or mother, and the old rag-picker she lived with beat her.  Once or twice Marie gave her food, and the poor creature attached herself to her like a dog, followed her upstairs and lay across her door.  After a while Madame Didier admitted her into her room at times, and let her share her poor meals, and sleep on a heap of sacking outside the door.  Perine, in such prosperity, was as happy as a queen.  It is true that Plon at first objected, but Marie could persuade him into anything, and he only grumbled.

On one winter day, Marie was stooping over the stove stirring something in an earthen pipkin; Perine, seated on the wooden stool, leaned forward and watched her operations with excessive interest.  Perhaps for want of an intelligent companion, Madame Didier was in the habit of soliloquising aloud, and at this moment she was saying cheerfully: