"And could you not complain to the police?" "At first I could think of nothing but Catharine's departure, but I soon felt great pains all over my body, I could not walk. Alas! what I had so much dreaded arrived. Yes--I had said to my brother, 'Some day my husband will beat me so hard--so hard, that I shall be obliged to go to a hospital. Then, my children, what will become of them?' And now here I am, at the hospital, and I say, What will become of my children?" "But is there not any justice, then, my God! for the poor?" "Too dear! too dear for us, as my brother said," answered Jeanne Duport, with bitterness. "My neighbors went to seek the police, they came: it was painful for me to denounce Duport, but on account of my daughter it was necessary. I said only that, in a quarrel I had with him about taking away my daughter, he had pushed me; that it was nothing, but that I wanted my daughter back again." "And what did he reply?" "That my husband had a right to take away his child, not being separated from me. 'You have only one way,' said the officer to me: 'commence a civil suit, demand a separation of body, and then the blows which your husband has given you, his conduct with this vile woman, will be in your favor, and they will force him to deliver up your daughter; otherwise, he can keep her in his own right.' 'But to commence a suit! I have not the means! I have my children to feed.' 'What can I do?' said he; 'so it is.' Yes," repeated Jeanne, sobbing, "he was right; so it is; and because that so it is, in three months, perhaps, my daughter will be a street-walker! while, if I had had the means to commence a suit, it would not have happened." "But that will never happen, your daughter must love you so much." "But she is so young! At that age, fear, bad treatment, bad counsels, bad examples! Poor Catharine! so gentle, so loving! and I, who only this year wished her to renew her first communion!" "Oh! you have much sorrow. And I complained of mine!" said Lorraine, wiping her eyes. "And your other children?" "On their account I did what I could to keep out of the hospital. I was obliged to give up. I vomit blood three or four times a day; I have a fever which prostrates me; I am unable to work. At least, by being cured quickly, I can return to my children, if, before this, they are not dead with hunger or imprisoned as beggars. I here--who will they have to take care of them, and feed them?" "Oh! this is terrible! You have no good neighbors, then?" "They are as poor as I am, and they have five children of their own; thus two children more is a heavy burden; however, they have promised me to feed them a little, during eight days. It is all they can do; it is taking from them bread, of which they themselves have none too much; so I must be cured in eight days; oh yes! cured or not, I shall go out, all the same."