Rigolette, feeling a lively interest in the sad fate of the sister of Pique-Vinaigre, did not take her eyes from her, and was endeavoring to approach a little nearer, when, unfortunately, a new visitor entering asked for a prisoner, and seated himself on the bench between Jeanne and the grisette. She, at the sight of this man, could not restrain a movement of surprise, almost fear. She recognized one of the two bailiffs who had come to arrest Morel, putting in execution the judgment obtained against the jeweler by Jacques Ferrand. This circumstance, recalling to Rigolette's mind the untiring persecutor of Germain, redoubled her sadness, from which her attention had been slightly withdrawn by the touching and painful communications of the sister of Pique-Vinaigre. Retreating as far as she could from her new neighbors, the grisette leaned against the wall, and abandoned herself to her sad thoughts. "Hold, Jeanne," resumed Pique-Vinaigre, whose jovial face had become suddenly clouded; "I am neither strong nor brave; but if I had been there while your husband was causing you so much misery, very playful things would not have passed between us. But you did not act rightly--you--" "What could I do? I have been obliged to suffer what I could not prevent! As long as there was anything to be sold, my husband sold it, so that he might go to the tavern with his mistress--everything, even to my little girl's Sunday frock." "But your daily earnings, why did you give them to him? Why did you not hide them?" "I did hide them; but he beat me so much that I was obliged to give them up. It was not on account of the blows that I yielded, but because I said to myself, in the end he will wound me so seriously that I shall not be able to work for some time. Suppose he breaks my arm, then what will become of me--who will take care of and feed my children? If I am forced to go the hospital, they will die of hunger then. Thus you can imagine, my brother, I preferred to give my money to my husband, not on account of the beating, but that I might not be wounded, and remain _able to work_." "Poor woman. Bah! they talk of martyrdom--it is you who are a martyr!" "And yet I have never harmed any one; I only ask to work to take care of my children; but what would you? There are the happy and unhappy, as there are the good and the wicked." "Yes, and it is astonishing how happy the good are! But you have finally got rid of that scoundrel of a husband?" "I hope so, for he did not leave me until he had sold my bedstead, and the cradle of my two little children. But I think he wished to do something worse." "What do you mean?" "I say him, but it was rather this bad woman who urged him; it is on that account I speak of it. 'I say,' one day he said to me, 'when in a family there is a pretty girl of fifteen like ours, it is very stupid not to make use of her beauty.'" "Oh! good! I understand. After having sold the clothes, he wished to sell the body."