“Absolution! to a woman from a woman! Never, I think; or at least saddled with such a penance as would take all savour from the grace. Well, as thou hast made thy bed----” “So must I lie on it.” “What! thou know’st the stranger’s motto? Little holy mother, but it is true; and I have made my bed, Nicette; and it is not a bed of flowers at all. _Aïe_! how the world swarms with pitfalls! Yet, at least, there is to-day an evil the less in Méricourt.” “What evil?” “The Englishman.” “He is gone?” “He is gone. I met him yesternoon on the Liége road. He had a staff in his hand and a knapsack on his shoulders.” Nicette was at the tiny casement, delicately coaxing its curtains into folds that pleased her. She was too fastidious with her task to speak for a moment. “Well,” she said at length, “it is an evil, I suppose, that only withdraws itself for a day or two?” “Better than that, little saint. He goes all the way to Paris. ‘But Mademoiselle Théroigne,’ says he, ‘I leave my heart behind me. I will come back to reclaim it in the spring. In the meantime, do me the favour to keep it on ice; for I think Méricourt is very near the tropics.’ Bah! is he not an imbecile? We are well quit of him.” “In the spring!” Nicette came round with a face like hard ivory. “Théroigne--why did he speak to you like that? It is not wise or good of you to court so insolent a familiarity.” “I did not court it, and I am not wise or good.” Mademoiselle Lambertine looked startled and displeased. “What has come to thee, Nicette? It is not like thee to rebuke poor sinners save by thy better example.” “And that is a negative virtue, is it not? Now were time, perhaps, that you give me the pretext, to end a struggle that my heart has long maintained with my conscience.” Théroigne rose, breathing a little quickly, her bent forefinger to her lips. “Nicette!” she cried faintly. “I must say it, Théroigne. This club--this thin dust thrown into the eyes of Méricourt----” The other went hurriedly to the door. “I had better go,” she said; “I cannot listen and not cry. Not now, Nicette, not now! I have no strength--I think the Englishman has left a blight upon the place!” Her footsteps retreated down the garden path--died away. Nicette, listening, with a line sprung between her eyes, came swiftly from her bedroom. Close by the door of it--crept from his stool--Baptiste, his mouth agape, had been eavesdropping, it seemed. She seized him with a raging clinch of her fingers. “Little detestable coward!” she cried, in a suppressed voice--“little sneak _mouchard_, to spy like a woman! How have I deserved to be for ever burdened with this millstone?” “You hurt me!” whimpered the child, struggling to escape. “Not so much as the black dogs will, when they come out of the well in the yard to carry you to the fire. Little beast, I have a mind to call them now.”