She had a look that frightened him upon
her face. When he tried to touch her hand, she shivered away from him.
The charcoal-burner, hardy and strong among forest-reared men, cowered
like a child in a corner, and covered his eyes and wept.
So the night wore away.
She had no perception of anything that happened to her until she was led
through her own little garden in the early day, and her starling cried to
her, "Bonjour, Bonjour!" Even then she only looked about her in a
bewildered way, and never spoke.
Were the sixteen days a dream?
She did not know.
The women whom Jeannot summoned, his mother and sisters, and Mere Krebs,
and one or two others, weeping for what had been the hardness of their
hearts against her, undressed her, and laid her down on her little bed,
and opened the shutters to the radiance of the sun.
She let them do as they liked, only she seemed neither to hear nor speak,
and she never spoke.
All that Jeannot could tell was that he had found her in Paris, and had
saved her from the river.
The women were sorrowful, and reproached themselves.
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