onsieur Lebigre begs you to drink this to his health, which has been
greatly shaken by you know what. He hopes that you will one day be
willing to cure him, by being for him as pretty and as sweet as these
flowers."

La Normande was much amused by the servant's delighted air. She kissed
her as she spoke to her of her master, and asked her if he wore braces,
and snored at nights. Then she made her take the champagne and flowers
back with her. "Tell Monsieur Lebigre," said she, "that he's not to send
you here again. It quite vexes me to see you coming here so meekly, with
your bottles under your arms."

"Oh, he wishes me to come," replied Rose, as she went away. "It is wrong
of you to distress him. He is a very handsome man."

La Normande, however, was quite conquered by Florent's affectionate
nature. She continued to follow Muche's lessons of an evening in the
lamplight, indulging the while in a dream of marrying this man who was
so kind to children. She would still keep her fish stall, while he would
doubtless rise to a position of importance in the administrative staff
of the markets. This dream of hers, however, was scarcely furthered by
the tutor's respectful bearing towards her. He bowed to her, and kept
himself at a distance, when she have liked to laugh with him, and love
him as she knew how to love. But it was just this covert resistance
on Florent's part which continually brought her back to the dream of
marrying him. She realised that he lived in a loftier sphere than her
own; and by becoming his wife she imagined that her vanity would reap no
little satisfaction.

She was greatly surprised when she learned the history of the man she
loved. He had never mentioned a word of those things to her; and she
scolded him about it. His extraordinary adventures only increased her
tenderness for him, and for evenings together she made him relate all
that had befallen him. She trembled with fear lest the police should
discover him; but he reassured her, saying that the matter was now too
old for the police to trouble their heads about it. One evening he told
her of the woman on the Boulevard Montmartre, the woman in the pink
bonnet, whose blood had dyed his hands. He still frequently thought of
that poor creature. His anguish-stricken mind had often dwelt upon her
during the clear nights he had passed in Cayenne; and he had returned
to France with a wild dream of meeting her again on some footway in the
bright sunshine