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Updated: July 8, 2025
The door opened, and Jeanne-Marie came in, holding another candle, which she shaded with her hand, as she stood by the bed for a moment, looking down upon Madelon. "You are better," she said at last, setting down the candle on the table behind her, and smoothing the pillow and coverlet. Her voice was like her face, harsh and melancholy, but with a tender, pathetic ring in it at times.
It was not long before a recollection of the past came back to Madelon, sufficiently clear, until the moment of her jumping out of the train at Le Trooz; after that she could remember nothing distinctly, only a general sense of misery, and pain, and terror. She asked Jeanne-Marie numberless questions, as to how and where she had found her, and what she had said.
He prescribed for Madelon, said he would call again, and left the house, pondering on the woman who kept so apart from her neighbours, and on her small visitor, who he knew well enough was not her niece, for had not Jacques Monnier told him how Jeanne-Marie had suddenly come in out of the rain, carrying the girl in her arms, and had taken her upstairs without a word of explanation?
She worked on steadily, and yet it was already September when the last stitch was put in, and she could give the work to Jeanne-Marie. A few days afterwards the woman put thirty francs into her hands. "There is your money," she said; "now what are you going to do with it?" "I am going away," answered Madelon. "Yes?" said Jeanne-Marie, without any apparent emotion, "and where are you going?"
All through the long summer evenings the voices of the men, as they sat smoking and drinking in its vine-covered arbours, might be heard; but during the day it was comparatively deserted, and Jeanne-Marie had no difficulty in finding a quiet, shady corner where Madelon might sit as long as she pleased without being disturbed.
Back to Jeanne-Marie with her promise unfulfilled? "I will keep my promise, I will not be frightened," thinks the poor child, bravely; "I will fancy that papa is in the room, and that he will take care of me." And all these thoughts pass through he head while the croupier is crying, "Faites votre jeu, Messieurs, faites votre jeu!" and in, and on she goes again.
"How did you know that I had run away from the convent?" she asked. "You said so," answered Jeanne-Marie. "You were afraid that your aunt would come and take you back." "Aunt Thérèse is dead," said Madelon. "I remember it all very well now. Did I tell you that? And did I tell you about papa, too?
And then presently, going upstairs to look for this happy, triumphant Madelon, she found her crouching on the floor, trying to stifle the sound of her despairing sobs. "Oh, Jeanne-Marie, Jeanne-Marie!" she cried, as soon as she could speak, "I wish I might stay with you, I wish I had never gone away; what was the use of it all?
"There," said Jeanne-Marie, contemplating her with much satisfaction, "now you have nothing to do but to get well again as fast as you can." "Ah, I shall soon be well now!" cried Madelon, joyfully. The colour came into her pale cheeks, her eyes shone with a new light.
Jeanne-Marie drew a curtain across the small window, so as to shut out the slanting sunbeams, which were pouring into the room, on to the patchwork quilt and white pillow where the little feverish head lay so uneasily; then, taking up her knitting, she sat down by the bedside, and as she mechanically added row after row to the blue worsted stocking, she reflected.
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