you talk thus to me?
Why make a jest of me? Why mock me? And because I have been so weak as
to say to you that I should like to live in the depths of a forest with
my man. Who are you, then, that you should make a fool of me in this
way? You, miserable girl, don't know what you have done! Now, in spite
of myself, I shall always be thinking of this forest, the house,
and--and--the children--and all that happiness which I shall never
have--never--never! And if I cannot forget what you have told me, why,
my life will be one eternal punishment,--a hell,--and that by your
fault! Yes, by your fault!"

"So much the better! Oh, so much the better!" said Fleur-de-Marie.

"You say, so much the better!" exclaimed La Louve, with her eyes
glaring.

"Yes,--so much the better! For if your present miserable life appears to
you a hell, you will prefer that of which I have spoken to you."

"What is the use of preferring it, since it is not destined for me? What
is the use of regretting that I walk the streets, since I shall die in
the streets?" exclaimed La Louve, more and more irritated, and taking in
her powerful grasp the small hand of Fleur-de-Marie. "Answer--answer!
Why do you try to make me desire that which I cannot have."

"To desire an honest and industrious life is to be worthy of that life,
as I have already told you," replied Fleur-de-Marie, without attempting
to disengage her hand.

"Well, and what then? Suppose I am worthy, what does that prove? How
much the better off will that make me?"

"To see realised what you consider as a dream," answered Fleur-de-Marie,
in a tone so serious and full of conviction that La Louve, again under
control, let go La Goualeuse's hand, and gazed at her in amazement.

"Listen to me, La Louve," said Fleur-de-Marie, in a voice full of
feeling; "do you think me so wicked as to excite such ideas and hopes in
you, if I were not sure that, whilst I made you blush at your present
condition, I gave you the means to quit it?"

"You! You can do this?"

"I! No; but some one who is good, and great, and powerful."

"Great and powerful?"

"Listen, La Louve. Three months ago I was, like you, a lost, an
abandoned creature. One day he of whom I speak to you with tears of
gratitude,"--and Fleur-de-Marie wiped her eyes,--"one day he came to me,
and he was not afraid, abased and despised as I was, to say comforting
words to me, the first I had ever heard. I told him my sufferings, my
miseries, my