h another burden, for,
as you may know, her son Charles got keeping company with a servant at a
wine shop, who of course ran away after she had a baby, which she left
him to see to. So one can understand that the Toussaints themselves are
hard put. I don't complain of them. They've already lent me a little
money, and of course they can't go on lending for ever."

She continued talking in this spiritless, resigned way, complaining only
on account of Celine; for, said she, it was enough to make one's heart
break to see such an intelligent child obliged to tramp the streets after
getting on so well at the Communal School. She could feel too that
everybody now kept aloof from them on account of Salvat. The Toussaints
didn't want to be compromised in any such business. There was only
Charles, who had said that he could well understand a man losing his head
and trying to blow up the _bourgeois_, because they really treated the
workers in a blackguard way.

"For my part, monsieur," added Madame Theodore, "I say nothing, for I'm
only a woman. All the same, though, if you'd like to know what I think,
well, I think that it would have been better if Salvat hadn't done what
he did, for we two, the girl and I, are the real ones to suffer from it.
Ah! I can't get the idea into my head, that the little one should be the
daughter of a man condemned to death."

Once more Celine interrupted her, flinging her arms around her neck: "Oh!
mamma, oh! mamma, don't say that, I beg you! It can't be true, it grieves
me too much!"

At this Pierre and Marie exchanged compassionate glances, while
Mere-Grand rose from her chair, in order to go upstairs and search her
wardrobes for some articles of clothing which might be of use to the two
poor creatures. Guillaume, who, for his part, had been moved to tears,
and felt full of revolt against the social system which rendered such
distress possible, slipped some alms into the child's little hand, and
promised Madame Theodore that he would see her landlord so as to get her
back her room.

"Ah! Monsieur Froment!" replied the unfortunate woman. "Salvat was quite
right when he said you were a real good man! And as you employed him here
for a few days you know too that he isn't a wicked one.... Now that
he's been put in prison everybody calls him a brigand, and it breaks my
heart to hear them." Then, turning towards Madame Mathis, who had
continued sewing in discreet silence, like a respectable woman who