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Graslin's speech went straight to those natural feelings which, more or less, fill the heart of every woman. The thought came into Veronique's mind that her face, too, had been destroyed by a horrible disease, and her Christian modesty rebuked her first impression. Hearing a whistle in the street, Graslin went downstairs, followed by Sauviat. They speedily returned.
From this time forth, as soon as all Limoges was sleeping, the banker would slip along the walls to the Sauviats' house. There he would tap gently on the window-shutter; the dog did not bark; old Sauviat came down and let him in, and Graslin would then spend an hour or two with Veronique in the brown room, where Madame Sauviat always served him a true Auvergnat supper.
"See! the hand of God is in all this; I am dying in a red room " Madame Sauviat went out, unable to bear those words. "Aline," she said, "she will speak! she will speak!" "Ah! madame is out of her mind," cried the faithful maid, who was bringing sheets. "Fetch the rector, madame." "Your mistress must be undressed," said Bianchon to the maid.
Thus it happened that the "Bande Noire," so celebrated for its devastations, had its birth in the brain of old Sauviat, the peddler, whom all Limoges afterward saw and knew for twenty-seven years in the rickety old shop among his cracked bells and rusty bars, chains and scales, his twisted leaden gutters, and metal rubbish of all kinds.
The father and mother went upstairs in the evenings to their daughter's apartment, where Veronique would read to them, by the light of a lamp placed behind a glass globe full of water, the "Vie des Saints," the "Lettres Edifiantes," and other books lent by the vicar. Madame Sauviat knitted stockings, feeling that she thus recouped herself for the cost of oil.
"Veronique will be Madame Graslin." "Madame Graslin!" exclaimed Mere Sauviat, astounded. "Is it possible?" said Veronique, to whom Graslin was personally unknown, and whose imagination regarded him very much as a Parisian grisette would regard a Rothschild. "Yes, it is settled," said old Sauviat solemnly.
At that instant Madame Sauviat and Gerard, who had outstripped the rest of the company, came up. "Who is that woman, my dear child?" asked Madame Graslin as soon as Francis reached her. "I don't know," he answered; "but she kissed me as you and grandmamma kissed me she cried," whispered Francis in his mother's ear. "Shall I go after her?" asked Gerard.
"Yes, neighbor, yes," Pere Sauviat would say; "if she asked me for ten crowns I'd let her have them. She has all she wants; but she never asks for anything; she is as gentle as a lamb." Veronique was, as a matter of fact, absolutely ignorant of the value of things.
By seven in winter, by nine in summer, the household was in bed, and the shop was closed and guarded by a huge dog, which got its living from the kitchens in the neighborhood. Madame Sauviat used about three francs' worth of candles in the course of the year.
She now shut herself up and would not even admit her mother; when Madame Sauviat asked to enter, Aline stopped her, saying, "Madame has gone to sleep." The next day Veronique rode out attended by Maurice only. In order to reach the Roche-Vive as quickly as possible she took the road by which she had returned the night before.
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