nce----"

"You want his address for the police," said the girl.

"Oh! no! no! not for that, dear!"

"Not for that; then what for? Tell me why you want it."

This was exactly what Mlle. Fouchette evidently did not desire to do.
Madeleine saw it, and added firmly,--

"Tell me first, then--well, then I'll see."

"I will, then," rejoined the other, savagely.

"Speak!"

"I wish to notify his sister."

Madeleine looked at the speaker fixedly, as if still waiting for her
to begin; stupidly, for her poor muddled brain refused to comprehend.

Mlle. Fouchette continued,--

"I say I wish to go to his place," she said, with great deliberation,
"and notify his sister that her brother is injured and is lying at
Hotel Dieu. I promised. It is important. Believing you knew the
address I have come to you. You will help me, for his sister's
sake,--for his sake, Madeleine? You know his sister lives with
him----"

"You--you said his sister----"

But the voice choked. The words came huskily, like a death-rattle in
her throat.

"Yes, sister," began again Mlle. Fouchette. But she was almost afraid
now. The aspect of her listener's face was enough to touch even a
harder heart than possessed this not too tender bearer of ill news.

However, Madeleine would have heard nothing more. She gazed vacantly
at the opposite wall, a knee between her hands, and swaying slightly
to and fro. Her face, bloated with drink, had become almost pale, and
was the picture of long-settled grief. It was as if she were in fresh
mourning for the long ago.

Presently a solitary tear from the unseen and unseeing eye stole out
of its dark retreat and rolled slowly and reluctantly down upon the
cheek and stopped and dried there.

Mlle. Fouchette saw it as the weather observer sees the moisture on
the glass and speculated on the character of the coming storm.

She was disappointed. For instead of an explosion Madeleine suddenly
rose and began fumbling among the garments on the wall without a word.
She selected the best from her humble wardrobe and laid the pieces
out one by one on the bed, then began rapidly to divest herself of
what she wore.

When interrogated by the wondering Fouchette she never replied.
Indeed, she no longer appeared to notice that her visitor was there.
She bathed her face, and washed her hands, and scrubbed her white
teeth, and carefully rearranged her hair. All of this with a calmness
and precision of a perfectly sober woman,