dilated nostrils, and
cuddled up against her.

The two women began to talk, and, without knowing why, Madame
d'Hardermes questioned the nurse, asked her where she came from, and
where she was taking the little thing to.

The other, rather flattered that Suzanne admired the child and took an
interest in it, replied, somewhat vaingloriously, that she lived at
_Bois-le-Roy_, and that her husband was a wagoner.

The child had been entrusted to their care by some people in Paris, who
appeared very happy, and extremely well off. And the nurse added in a
drawling voice:

"Perhaps, Madame, you know my master and mistress, Monsieur and Madame
d'Hardermes?"

Suzanne started with surprise and grief, and grew as pale as if all her
blood were streaming from some wound, and thinking that she had not
heard correctly, with a fixed look and trembling lips, she said,
slowly, as if every word hurt her throat:

"You said, Monsieur and Madame d'Hardermes?"

"Yes; do you know them?"

"I, yes...formerly...but it is a long time ago."

She could scarcely speak, and was as pale as death; she hardly knew what
she was saying, with her eyes on this pretty child, which George must be
so fond of.

She saw him, as if in a window which had suddenly been lifted up, where
everything had been dark before, with their arms round each other, and
radiant with happiness, with that fair head, that divine dawn, the
living, smiling proof of their love, between them.

They would never leave each other; they were already almost as good as
married, and were robbing her of the name which she had defended and
guarded as a sacred deposit.

She would never succeed in breaking such bonds. It was a shipwreck where
nothing could survive, and where the waves did not even drift some
shapeless waif and stray ashore.

And great tears rolled down her cheeks, one by one, and wet her veil.

The train stopped at the station, and the nurse scarcely liked to ask
Suzanne for the child, who was holding it against her heaving bosom, and
kissing it as if she intended to smother it, and she said:

"I suppose the baby reminds you of one you have lost, my poor, dear
lady, but the loss can be repaired at your age, surely; a second is as
good as a first, and if one does not do oneself justice..."

Madame d'Hardermes gave her back the child, and hurried out straight
ahead of her, like a hunted animal, and threw herself into the first cab
that she saw...

She sued for a