As to Maxence, he would vainly have tried to conceal the passionate interest with which he was listening to these unexpected confidences.

“Have you, then, never seen your benefactress again?” he asked.

“Never,” replied Mlle. Lucienne.  “All my efforts to reach her have proved fruitless.  She does not live in Paris now.  I have written to her:  my letters have remained without answer.  Did she ever get them?  I think not.  Something tells me that she has not forgotten me.”

She remained silent for a few moments, as if collecting herself before resuming the thread of her narrative.  And then,

“It was thus brutally,” she resumed, “that I was sent off.  It would have been useless to beg, I knew; and, moreover, I have never known how to beg.  I piled up hurriedly in two trunks and in some bandboxes all I had in the world,—­all I had received from the generosity of my poor mistress; and, before the stated hour, I was ready.  The cook and the chambermaid had already gone.  The man who was treating me so cruelly was waiting for me.  He helped me carry out my boxes and trunks, after which he locked the door, put the key in his pocket; and, as the American omnibus was passing, he beckoned to it to stop.  And then, before entering it,

“‘Good luck, my pretty girl!’ he said with a laugh.

“This was in the month of January, 1866.  I was just thirteen.  I have had since more terrible trials, and I have found myself in much more desperate situations:  but I do not remember ever feeling such intense discouragement as I did that day, when I found myself alone upon that road, not knowing which way to go.  I sat down on one of my trunks.  The weather was cold and gloomy:  there were few persons on the road.  They looked at me, doubtless wondering what I was doing there.  I wept.  I had a vague feeling that the well-meant kindness of my poor benefactress, in bestowing upon me the blessings of education, would in reality prove a serious impediment in the life-struggle which I was about to begin again.  I thought of what I suffered with the laundress; and, at the idea of the tortures which the future still held in store for me, I desired death.  The Seine was near:  why not put an end at once to the miserable existence which I foresaw?

“Such were my reflections, when a woman from Rueil, a vegetable-vender, whom I knew by sight, happened to pass, pushing her hand-cart before her over the muddy pavement.  She stopped when she saw me; and, in the softest voice she could command,

“‘What are you doing there, my darling?’ she asked.

“In a few words I explained to her my situation.  She seemed more surprised than moved.

“‘Such is life,’ she remarked,—­’sometimes up, sometimes down.’

“And, stepping up nearer,

“‘What do you expect to do now?’ she interrogated in a tone of voice so different from that in which she had spoken at first, that I felt more keenly the horror of my altered situation.