Pierrette’s inward commotion was like Brigaut’s.  She slipped the note into the pocket of her apron.  The hectic spots upon her cheekbones turned to a cherry-scarlet.  These two children went through, all unknown to themselves, many more emotions than go to the make-up of a dozen ordinary loves.  This moment in the market-place left in their souls a well-spring of passionate feeling.  Sylvie, who did not recognize the Breton accent, took no notice of Brigaut, and Pierrette went home safely with her treasure.

The letters of these two poor children were fated to serve as documents in a terrible judicial inquiry; otherwise, without the fatal circumstances that occasioned that inquiry, they would never have been heard of.  Here is the one which Pierrette read that night in her chamber:—­

My dear Pierrette,—­At midnight, when everybody is asleep but me, who am watching you, I will come every night under your window.  Let down a string long enough to reach me; it will not make any noise; you must fasten to the end of it whatever you write to me.  I will tie my letter in the same way.  I hear they have taught you to read and write,—­those wicked relations who were to do you good, and have done you so much harm.  You, Pierrette, the daughter of a colonel who died for France, reduced by those monsters to be their servant!  That is where all your pretty color and health have gone.  My Pierrette, what has become of her? what have they done with her.  I see plainly you are not the same, not happy.  Oh!  Pierrette, let us go back to Brittany.  I can earn enough now to give you what you need; for you yourself can earn three francs a day and I can earn four or five; and thirty sous is all I want to live on.  Ah!  Pierrette, how I have prayed the good God for you ever since I came here!  I have asked him to give me all your sufferings, and you all pleasures.  Why do you stay with them? why do they keep you?  Your grandmother is more to you than they.  They are vipers; they have taken your gaiety away from you.  You do not even walk as you once did in Brittany.  Let us go back.  I am here to serve you, to do your will; tell me what you wish.  If you need money I have a hundred and fifty francs; I can send them up by the string, though I would like to kiss your dear hands and lay the money in them.  Ah, dear Pierrette, it is a long time now that the blue sky has been overcast for me.  I have not had two hours’ happiness since I put you into that diligence of evil.  And when I saw you the other morning, looking like a shadow, I could not reach you; that hag of a cousin came between us.  But at least we can have the consolation of praying to God together every Sunday in church; perhaps he will hear us all the more when we pray together.

  Not good-by, my dear, Pierrette, but to-night.

This letter so affected Pierrette that she sat for more than an hour reading and re-reading and gazing at it.  Then she remembered with anguish that she had nothing to write with.  She summoned courage to make the difficult journey from her garret to the dining-room, where she obtained pen, paper, and ink, and returned safely without waking her terrible cousin.  A few minutes before midnight she had finished the following letter:—­