"Let me see," he said coming over.

But Marie hastily bound a bit of rag round her hand.

"The great thing is to exclude the air," she said quickly. "Then you mean to be on the lookout for these grand robbers, M. Plon?"

"Yes, instead of idling away my time up here," he said, rolling towards the door. "But you women dearly love a little gossip, don't you? And though you are not the best of managers, Madame Didier, no one can say you don't work with industry. So keep a good heart. You shall hear if I get the reward."

As the sound of his heavy footsteps creaked down the stairs, Jean came out and flung himself on the chair which M. Plon had occupied.

"Now that that old idiot has taken himself off, let's see what he was talking about."

"Is it true about the robbery?" asked Marie, leaning over his shoulder.

"So it seems."

"And the reward?"

"Twelve thousand francs."

"Twelve thousand francs!" repeated his wife in amazement. "Oh, you must be mistaken!"

"There are the figures at any rate, see for yourself."

"Yes, I see. I suppose it must be so, as it is in the paper; but--but--if we could only have a little part of it!"

"Ah, if!" said Jean with a shrug. "But how will you manage? Stand about the corners of the Streets and ask every _escarpe_ that pa.s.ses?"

"I could almost do that," his wife answered stoutly, "when I reflect that with money we might have an advocate, and you might be free. My store grows so slowly, Jean!"

Jean dashed the paper to the ground, and thrust his hands through his hair.

"Don't talk of it, if you wouldn't madden me!" he exclaimed.

"Might--might--I am sick of mights! Cooped up here I can do nothing, but if I had only common luck I might get the end of a clue as well as any other poor devil. I tell you, Marie, I have half a mind to give myself up, and end everything."

She clung to him, pale as death.

"No, no!"

"You'd get on better without me."

"No, no!"

Jean's tragic air vanished in a rush of real emotion. He put his wife from him and looked at her sorrowfully.

"Poor soul!" he said slowly. "And you really mean that I haven't tired you out yet with all my moods and cross words? No? Then, decidedly, we must rub on a little longer still."

She embraced him with all the grat.i.tude a woman feels when her good offices are accepted.

"To-morrow," she said cheerfully, "to-morrow will bring you some tobacco."

"To-morrow will also, I imagine, bring Perine," he replied, with a laugh, and when he laughed it was possible to see what a handsome young fellow the haggard man had been. "Well, I am not sure that Perine isn't preferable to old Plon-Plon. When I hear him prosing away to you on the duty of being contented, it's all I can do not to knock him down. You a bad manager, indeed!"

"Do not talk of anything so imprudent."

"He would roll like a ball," said Jean longingly.

"Jean!"

"Bah, you need not fear. To do things sometimes in imagination is the only way of keeping my muscles in exercise. Oh, if I could only get a little fresh air, or drop in at the _bra.s.serie_ and hear what is doing!"

"See, here," said Marie, true to her mission of comforter, "to-night we shall have a luxury, for this work must be finished and carried home to-morrow morning, and so I shall allow myself a candle. Sometimes I am afraid that I want more light than in old days, but I daresay that is a foolish fancy. The cabbage will be ready in a few minutes; meanwhile, tell me what more news you have got there in the paper. M. Plon has a great respect for my scholarship, but he is afraid I waste my time over his journals--aha, M. Plon, you little know that I have got my reader!"

"Plon is an a.s.s," said Jean gruffly, for he did not like any one to find a flaw in the wife whom he often scolded himself.

"Perhaps," said Marie happily. "But now, find me something horribly delightful to-night, something to make me shudder."

"Capture of a wolf in Auvergne."

"Of a wolf! Is it possible!" demanded Madame Didier, much interested.

"And how many people did he eat?"

"Only one."

"Only one! What a stupid wolf! Go on, my friend."

"Suicide of a husband."

"Not that, I do not like anything so sad," she said in a changed voice.

"And where was his wife all the time, that she could not prevent it, I should like to know? No, let me hear a little more about this robbery, and then we will have our dinner."

PART III.

The hours pa.s.sed, the light faded in the little garret where Marie's busy fingers toiled day after day to add to the little h.o.a.rd so slowly acc.u.mulating, and Marie's cheerful heart brought out greater treasures of unselfish devotion, if her husband had only known it. Perhaps he did know it--in a fashion. Through the night, when it came, she thought often uneasily of Perine out in the heart of the great wicked city. But Perine had a haunt or two of her own, and Marie said prayers for her, and slept, hoping the girl would be safe.

She got up early the next morning while Jean was yet asleep, and cheered herself as she looked at her scanty supply of poor coffee with the thought that she would be paid for her work in the course of the day.

Meanwhile the breakfast would not be a very rich affair, and she was pondering whether she could be so extravagant as to run to a _cremerie_ near at hand for two _sous_-worth of milk, when an unexpected sound filled her with dismay. It was Perine's shuffling steps upon the stairs, and she was by no means sure how Jean would receive such an early visitor. Moreover, she did not care that he should be disturbed, and she went hastily to the door to moderate the noise of the girl's awkward entry. For a wonder no word or look of hers could do this. Perine, who generally was obedient to her smallest sign, was in a state of uncontrollable excitement; she fled to Marie's arms, buried her rough head there, sobbed her loudest, and presently, in the thick of incoherent lamentations, pulled down her dress, and showed a heavy bruise on her shoulder. Then she sobbed again, and implored Madame Didier not to let them beat her.

"Come, come, come!" said Marie rea.s.suringly, "tell me a little more about this, and don't be a baby, Perine. Remember that you are a big girl. No one will come here to beat you; if they did, good M. Plon would not let them come up the stairs. Tell me who did it?"

She sat down on the stool as she spoke, and let the poor clumsy creature rest on her knee.

"The man, the bad man!" howled Perine.

"That I hear; but what were you doing to make any one so cruel?"