“How can it have happened?” said he, so gently that even she could hardly catch the words.
Her eyes suddenly filled with tears.
“They died,” she continued. “All three in one month. What was I to do? I was left alone. The chemist, the doctor, the three funerals. … I had to sell everything to pay the debts. Nothing was left but the clothes I wore. I went as servant to Monsieur Cacheux. … Do you remember him? A lame man. I was only just fifteen. I was scarcely fourteen when you left home—and I went wrong with him. … You know how stupid we peasant girls are. Then I went as nurse in a notary’s family—and it was the same with him. For a time he made me his mistress and I had a lodging of my own; but that did not last long. He left me, and for three days I was without food. No one would take me, so I came here like the rest of them.” And as she spoke the water flowed in streams from her eyes and nose, wetting her cheeks and trickling into her mouth.
“What have we done?” said he.
“I thought you were dead also. How could I have helped it?” whispered she through her tears.
“How was it you did not know me?” he answered, also in a whisper.
“I do not know. It was not my fault,” continued she, weeping yet more bitterly.
“How could I know you?” he said again. “You were so different when I left home! But you should have known me!”
She threw up her hands in despair.
“Ah! I see so many of them—these men. They all look alike to me now!”