"Nothing, madame: and yet, since my infancy, she has always shown this feeling toward me. The Schoolmaster answered, 'I will not have the Goualeuse drowned; she shall not go to Bras-Rouge.' La Chouette was as much surprised as I was, madame, to hear this man defend me thus. She became furious, and swore that she would take me to Bras-Rouge in spite of him. 'I defy you,' said he,' for I have La Goualeuse by the arm; I will not let her go, and I'll strangle you if you come near her.' But what do you mean to do with her?' cried La Chouette, 'since she must be put out of the way for two months.' 'There is a way,' said the Schoolmaster; 'we are going to the Champs Elysees; we will stop the carriage near the guard-house; you will go and look for Bras-Rouge at his tavern. It is midnight; you will find him there; bring him with you; he will take La Goualeuse to the post, and declare she is a gay girl, whom he found near his tavern. As they are condemned to three months' imprisonment when they are caught on the Champs Elysees, and Goualeuse is still on the police lists, she will be arrested, and sent to Saint Lazare, where she will be as well guarded and concealed as in the cellar of Bras-Rouge.' 'But,' replied La Chouette, 'the Goualeuse will not suffer herself to be arrested; once at the guard-house, she will tell all, she will denounce us. Supposing, even, that she is imprisoned, she will write to her protectors; all will be discovered.' 'No, she will go to prison willingly,' answered the School-master; 'she must swear that she will not denounce us to any one as long as she remains at Saint Lazare, nor afterward either. She owes as much to me, for I have prevented her being disfigured by you, and drowned at Bras-Rouge's; but if after having sworn not to speak, she should do it, we will set the farm at Bouqueval a-fire.' Then, addressing me, he said, 'Decide! swear the oath I ask, you shall go to prison for two months; otherwise I abandon you to La Chouette, who will take you to the cellar, where you'll be drowned. Come, decide. I know If you swear you will keep your oath.'" "And you have sworn?" "Alas! yes, madame; I feared so much to be disfigured by La Chouette, or to be drowned in a cellar; that appeared to me so frightful. Any other kind of death would nave appeared less fearful. I should not, perhaps, have endeavored to escape." "What a gloomy idea at your age!" said Madame d'Harville, looking at La Goualeuse with surprise. "Once away from this place, returned to your benefactors, will you not be very happy? Has not your repentance effaced the past?" "Can the past be effaced? Can the past be forgotten? Can repentance destroy the memory, madame?" cried Fleur-de-Marie, in a tone so despairing that Clemence shuddered. "But all faults can be redeemed, unhappy child!"