Then she went back to Rue St Servan, and sought Madame Roulleau. Madame was sitting in the office, with a pen behind her ear, and her thin hair drawn up tighter, doing her husband's work with considerable acerbity. She would not in the least have minded bearing its whole weight upon her shoulders had it not been that certain foolish legal impediments in the way of women cut her off from the most lucrative part of his profession. It was a folly, but it was undeniable. And Ignace's cowardice just now stood in the way of golden gains. No wonder that madame was sharp in the midst of her astonishment at seeing Therese before her. "You were speaking yesterday of the children having their vacation, madame," said Therese quietly. "I am thinking of taking advantage of it to leave you for the present." Madame laid down her papers, stood up behind the bureau, and resting her hands on it said, in a low furious voice, "You are going?" "For a time only, I repeat, madame." "Oh, I comprehend. It is the fever-fright that has hold of you," she said, contemptuously. "Understand, however, mademoiselle, that by leaving Charville you lose even the pitiful sum provided for your support." Therese winced under the scorn as the young do wince. She grew very red, and said quickly, "You are mistaken, madame. What I propose doing is to offer myself as a nurse at the hospital. I have no intention of leaving Charville." "You! A nurse!" "Exactly so, madame." "See then," cried madame, volubly, sinking back among her papers,--"see then how the ingratitude I knew would come to pass, has come! We take her in when no one else would do so, nourish her as a daughter, disarrange ourselves, slave,--when I think of it, there is nothing we have not done. Ah, my poor Ignace, what will it not cost you to learn that I was right!" "What have I said?" asked Therese, appalled at the storm. "Oh, do not consider it, do not consider us, mademoiselle. If others may think it base that at the time when my husband's health has failed, and I must struggle for bread for my children, you should take the opportunity of depriving them of even that little which might assist them, I say nothing. I make no reproaches, I leave them to your own heart." Therese drew herself up proudly. "You talk strangely, Madame Roulleau," she said. "At one moment I am a burden, at another an assistance. Do not fear for the little you receive from me. So long as I am provided with a bare support, the rest may remain in your hands until my return. Only these scenes are not agreeable."