it? I cannot send it to a wet
nurse as I have not any money, and I do not know which way to turn.
Pray answer by return post.

"Your loving son,

"Paul."

Jeanne dropped on a chair with hardly enough strength left to call
Rosalie. The maid came and they read the letter over again together, and
then sat looking at each other in silence.

"I'll go and fetch the child myself, madame," said Rosalie at last. "We
can't leave it to die."

"Very well, my girl, go," answered Jeanne.

"Put on your hat, madame," said the maid, after a pause, "and we will go
and see the lawyer at Goderville. If that woman is going to die, M. Paul
must marry her for the sake of the child."

Jeanne put on her hat without a word. Her heart was overflowing with
joy, but she would not have allowed anyone to see it for the world, for
it was one of those detestable joys in which people can revel in their
hearts, but of which they are all the same ashamed; her son's mistress
was going to die.

The lawyer gave Rosalie detailed instructions which the servant made him
repeat two or three times; then, when she was sure she knew exactly what
to do, she said:

"Don't you fear; I'll see it's all right now." And she started for Paris
that very night.

Jeanne passed two days in such an agony of mind that she could fix her
thoughts on nothing. The third morning she received a line from Rosalie
merely saying she was coming back by that evening's train; nothing more;
and in the afternoon, about three o'clock, Jeanne sent round to a
neighbor to ask him if he would drive her to the Beuzeville railway
station to meet her servant.

She stood on the platform looking down the rails (which seemed to get
closer together right away as far off as she could see), and turning
every now and then to look at the clock. Ten minutes more--five
minutes--two--and at last the train was due, though as yet she could see
no signs of it. Then, all at once, she saw a cloud of white smoke, and
underneath it a black speck which got rapidly larger and larger. The big
engine came into the station, snorting and slackening its speed, and
Jeanne looked eagerly into every window as the carriages went past her.

The doors opened and several people got out--peasants in blouses,
farmers' wives with baskets on their arms, a few _bourgeois_ in soft
hats--and at last Rosalie ap