“I appeal to you, madame,” the voice went on. “Figure to yourself a daughter of yours, alone, stricken with terror, not knowing where to go, feeling herself utterly deserted. It is of all things impossible that I should be detained. Bah, what is a cut on the head? A nothing. Yes, to be sure I was insensible, but at this moment I have my faculties, and I am so weak that I cannot make that little journey. You will send? But the child in that foul cow shed all night! Who knows if she be not ill or has left the place and is wandering about lost and forsaken?” “Paulette!” cried Lucie darting up the steps of the battered church, from which came the voice. “Paulette, are you then here? It is I, Lucie.” From the doorway, which was scarce more than a gaping hole rushed forth a stout figure with bandaged head and torn clothing. “My little one! The blessed child! It is she herself,” cried Paulette grasping Lucie by the hands and drawing her inside. “Monsieur the doctor, Madame the nurse, behold the child. She is here. Is it not a miracle of _le bon Dieu_?” Paulette, excited, half laughing, half crying, held tightly to Lucie. The doctor and nurse stood by smiling appreciatively. “Tell us how you managed to get here safely, mademoiselle,” said the doctor. So Lucie told her tale which was interrupted by many exclamations from Paulette, but was listened to with interest by all who heard. “Surely the saints had you in keeping,” said Paulette, when the story was ended. “For there is danger everywhere and in coming here you might have been killed as I nearly was.” “Tell me of that,” urged Lucie. “Were you badly hurt, Paulette? Are you suffering, my poor one?” “Not now so much. It was this way that it happened, _ma petite_: I was coming into the town. I had arrived as you may say. Suddenly a great noise, a crash. I knew no more till I find myself within these walls, if walls one can still call them. I am at first unable to collect my thoughts. At last I realize that here am I with a hole in the head and so weak that when I stand I am afflicted with a dizziness. I wish to go to you, but no, this is impossible. I try to explain. This, too, is difficult. It is then the middle of the night, I know not what hour. I lie down again and sleep, perhaps. When I awake I am given food. I am better, and then I begin to implore that I be allowed to return to you. These, though good and kind, refuse to permit me to go. Tell me, little one, how did you fare in that so unclean place? You, of course had food from the basket.” “But no, Paulette, for alas, it was the wrong basket. The one in which was the food, that went with grandfather.” “_Mon Dieu!_” exclaimed Paulette. “How I am a stupid? What a _sot animal_, a _dindon_ I am not to have perceived that, and then I had not this wound upon the head which would have given me some excuse for stupidity.” “But you realize, Paulette, that those two baskets were exactly alike.”