Aline felt dazed, and so faint that she was glad to support herself against the rough prison wall. When she could control her trembling thoughts a little, she began to wonder what she should do. She had only been a week in Paris, she knew no one except her cousin, the Vicomte, and Mme de Maillé, and they were in prison—they and many, many more. For the moment these frowning walls stood to her for home, or all that she possessed of home, and she was shut outside, in a dreadful world, full of unknown dangers, peopled perhaps with persons who would speak to her as Lenoir had done, touch her even,—and at that she flushed again, shuddered and looked wildly round. A very fat woman was coming down the street,—the fattest woman Mlle de Rochambeau had ever seen, yes, fatter even than Sister Josèphe, she considered, with that mechanical detachment of thought which is so often the accompaniment of great mental distress. She wore a striped petticoat and a gaily flowered gown, the sleeves of which were rolled up to display a pair of huge brown arms. She had a very broad, sallow face, and little pig’s eyes sunk deep in rolls of crinkled flesh. Aline gazed at her, fascinated, and the woman returned the look. In truth, Mlle de Rochambeau, with her rose-wreathed hair, her delicate muslin dress, her fichu trimmed with the finest Valenciennes lace, her thin stockings and modish white silk shoes, was a sufficiently arresting figure, when one considered the hour and the place. The fat woman hesitated a moment, and in that moment Mademoiselle spoke. "Madame——" It was the most hesitating essay at speech, but the woman stopped and swung her immense body round until she faced the girl. "Eh bien, Ma’mselle," she said in a thick, drawling voice. Mademoiselle moistened her dry lips and tried again. "Madame—I do not know—can you tell me,—oh! you look kind, can you tell me what to do?" "What to do, Ma’mselle?" "Oh yes, Madame, and—and where to go?" "Where to go, Ma’mselle?" "Yes, Madame." "But why, Ma’mselle?" When anything terrible happens to the very young, they are unable to realise that the whole world does not know of their misfortune. Thus to Mlle de Rochambeau it appeared inconceivable that this woman should be in ignorance of so important an event as the arrest of the Marquise de Montargis and her friends. It was only when, to a puzzled expression, the woman added a significant tap of the gnarled forefinger upon the heavy forehead, and, with a shrug of voluminous shoulders, prepared to pass on, that it dawned upon her that here perhaps was help, and that it was slipping away from her for want of a little explanation. "Oh, Madame," she exclaimed desperately, "do listen to me. I am Mlle de Rochambeau, and it is only a week since I came to Paris to be with my cousin, the Marquise de Montargis, and now they have arrested her, and I have nowhere to go." A sound of voices came from behind the great gate of the prison.