“She could not have given these wounds herself,” he said.

“No; the horrible woman to whom I had the misfortune to trust her was murdering her,” said the grandmother.  “My poor Pierrette was screaming ’Help! help!  I’m dying,’—­enough to touch the heart of an executioner.”

“But why was it?” said the doctor, feeling Pierrette’s pulse.  “She is very ill,” he added, examining her with a light.  “She must have suffered terribly; I don’t understand why she has not been properly cared for.”

“I shall complain to the authorities,” said the grandmother.  “Those Rogrons asked me for my child in a letter, saying they had twelve thousand francs a year and would take care of her; had they the right to make her their servant and force her to do work for which she had not the strength?”

“They did not choose to see the most visible of all maladies to which young girls are liable.  She needed the utmost care,” cried Monsieur Martener.

Pierrette was awakened by the light which Madame Frappier was holding near her face, and by the horrible sufferings in her head caused by the reaction of her struggle.

“Ah!  Monsieur Martener, I am very ill,” she said in her pretty voice.

“Where is the pain, my little friend?” asked the doctor.

“Here,” she said, touching her head above the left ear.

“There’s an abscess,” said the doctor, after feeling the head for a long time and questioning Pierrette on her sufferings.  “You must tell us all, my child, so that we may know how to cure you.  Why is your hand like this?  You could not have given yourself that wound.”

Pierrette related the struggle between herself and her cousin Sylvie.

“Make her talk,” said the doctor to the grandmother, “and find out the whole truth.  I will await the arrival of the doctor from Paris; and we will send for the surgeon in charge of the hospital here, and have a consultation.  The case seems to me a very serious one.  Meantime I will send you a quieting draught so that mademoiselle may sleep; she needs sleep.”

Left alone with her granddaughter the old Breton woman exerted her influence over the child and made her tell all; she let her know that she had money enough now for all three, and promised that Brigaut should live with them.  The poor girl admitted her martyrdom, not imagining the events to which her admissions would give rise.  The monstrosity of two beings without affection and without conception of family life opened to the old woman a world of woe as far from her knowledge as the morals of savages may have seemed to the first discoverers who set foot in America.

The arrival of her grandmother, the certainty of living with her in comfort soothed Pierrette’s mind as the sleeping draught soothed her body.  The old woman watched her darling, kissing her forehead, hair, and hands, as the holy women of old kissed the hands of Jesus when they laid him in the tomb.