ming all the duties of her
toilet quite mechanically, from sheer habit.

The next morning she went to the police office to see if she could get
any help there towards the discovery of her son's whereabouts. They told
her they could not promise her anything, but that they would attend to
the matter. After she had left the police office, she wandered about the
streets, in the hopes of meeting her child, and she felt more friendless
and forsaken among the busy crowds than she did in the midst of the
lovely fields.

When she returned to the hotel in the evening, she was told that a man
from M. Paul had asked for her, and was coming again the next day. All
the blood in her body seemed to suddenly rush to her heart and she could
not close her eyes all night. Perhaps it was Paul himself! Yes, it must
be so, although his appearance did not tally with the description the
hotel people had given of the man who had called, and when, about nine
o'clock in the morning, there came a knock at her door, she cried, "Come
in!" expecting her son to rush into her arms held open to receive him.

But it was a stranger who entered--a stranger who began to apologize for
disturbing her and to explain that he had come about some money Paul
owed him. As he spoke she felt herself beginning to cry, and she tried
to hide her tears from the man by wiping them away with the end of her
finger as soon as they reached the corners of her eyes. The man had
heard of her arrival from the concierge at the Rue du Sauvage, and as he
could not find Paul he had come to his mother. He held out a paper which
Jeanne mechanically took; she saw "90 francs" written on it, and she
drew out the money and paid the man. She did not go out at all that day,
and the next morning more creditors appeared. She gave them all the
money she had left, except twenty francs, and wrote and told Rosalie how
she was placed.

Until her servant's answer came she passed the days in wandering
aimlessly about the streets. She did not know what to do or how to kill
the long, miserable hours; there was no one who knew of her troubles, or
to whom she could go for sympathy, and her one desire was to get away
from this city and to return to her little house beside the lonely road,
where, a few days before, she had felt she could not bear to live
because it was so dull and lonely. Now she was sure she could live
nowhere else but in that little home where all her mournful habits had
taken root.