And then she told me her adventures. I reproduce them, stringing them together as best I can, to make them clearer, but as a matter of fact, her story was spread over a dialogue in which my questions guided the story-teller, who was ever ready to make digressions, and was loquacious in futilities. Sometimes as we talked, a noise would interrupt our talk. Emma would sit up in terror of Lerne, and I could not prevent myself shivering, at the sight of her fear, for had there been an eye or an ear at the keyhole, the somber story would have been repeated in my case. One way or another, I learned from Emma her origin and her early life. It has nothing to do with my story, and might easily be summed up in the phrase “How a foundling became a courtesan!” Emma showed, during this confession, a sincerity which would have been called cynicism in the case of any one less candid. With the same frankness, she went on: “I got to know Lerne years ago. I was fifteen, and at the hospital at Nanthel. I had entered his service as a nurse? No! I had had a fight with my friend Léonie about Alcide, who was my man. Well, I am not ashamed of it! He is superb! He is a Colossus! My dear boy, he could chuck you about like a ball. My belt was too narrow a bracelet for him! “Well, I got a blow with a knife--a nasty one, too. Just look!” She flung off the coverlet, and showed me, near her shoulder, a livid triangular scar--the handiwork of the execrable Léonie. “Yes, you may well kiss it,” she went on. “I nearly died of it. Your uncle looked after me, and saved me. I may well say that. “At that time, your uncle was a fine fellow--not stuck-up. He often spoke to me. I thought that flattering. The head surgeon! Think of that! And he talked so well, too. He gave me long sermons, just as fine as any in Church, about my life: it was bad, I ought to change it, and so on, and so forth. And all this without having the least appearance of being disgusted with me, and so sincerely that I for my part, began to be disgusted with it myself, and not to wish for any more of the gay life, or any more Alcide. Illness, you know, that cools one’s blood; and Lerne said to me one fine day, ‘You are cured now, and can go away when you like, only it is not enough to have taken a good resolution--you must keep it. Will you come to my house? You shall be the laundry-maid, and you will earn your living far from your old companions, and all on the square, too,’ he said. “All this puzzled me. I said to myself, ‘Oh, talk away. That is only a pretty speech to fool me. One does not offer to keep a woman for the love of art.’ “But all the same, Lerne’s kindness, his rank, his fame, and a certain kind of niceness in him, made me more grateful, and made it into a sort of affection, do you see, and I accepted his proposal, and all that might follow. “Well, would you believe it! Not at all! There still was a saint on earth, and that was he. For a whole year he kept away from me.