said to
each other in a whisper: 'You know, little Fontanelle,' and everybody
turned away in the streets when she passed. Her parents could not even
get a nurse to take her out for a walk, as the other servants held aloof
from her, as if contact with her would poison everybody who came near
her.

"It was pitiable to see the poor child go and play every afternoon. She
remained quite by herself, standing by her maid and looking at the other
children amusing themselves. Sometimes, yielding to an irresistible
desire to mix with the other children, she advanced timidly, with nervous
gestures, and mingled with a group, with furtive steps, as if conscious
of her own disgrace. And immediately the mothers, aunts and nurses would
come running from every seat and take the children entrusted to their
care by the hand and drag them brutally away.

"Little Fontanelle remained isolated, wretched, without understanding
what it meant, and then she began to cry, nearly heartbroken with grief,
and then she used to run and hide her head in her nurse's lap, sobbing.

"As she grew up, it was worse still. They kept the girls from her, as if
she were stricken with the plague. Remember that she had nothing to
learn, nothing; that she no longer had the right to the symbolical wreath
of orange-flowers; that almost before she could read she had penetrated
that redoubtable mystery which mothers scarcely allow their daughters to
guess at, trembling as they enlighten them on the night of their
marriage.

"When she went through the streets, always accompanied by her governess,
as if, her parents feared some fresh, terrible adventure, with her eyes
cast down under the load of that mysterious disgrace which she felt was
always weighing upon her, the other girls, who were not nearly so
innocent as people thought, whispered and giggled as they looked at her
knowingly, and immediately turned their heads absently, if she happened
to look at them. People scarcely greeted her; only a few men bowed to
her, and the mothers pretended not to see her, while some young
blackguards called her Madame Baptiste, after the name of the footman who
had attacked her.

"Nobody knew the secret torture of her mind, for she hardly ever spoke,
and never laughed, and her parents themselves appeared uncomfortable in
her presence, as if they bore her a constant grudge for some irreparable
fault.

"An honest man would not willingly give his hand to a liberated convict,
woul