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However, neither their looks nor their tears disturbed the recluse. Her hands were still clasped, her lips dumb, her eyes set; and to those who knew her story it was heartrending to see her sit and gaze at that little shoe.

The three had not yet breathed a word; they dared not speak, even in a whisper. This profound silence, this great grief, this entire oblivion of all but one thing, affected them like the high altar at Easter or at Christmas-tide. They were silent, absorbed, ready to fall upon their knees. They felt as if they had just gone into church on Holy Saturday and heard the Tenebrœ.

At last Gervaise, the most curious, and consequently the least sensitive of the three, made an attempt to draw the recluse into conversation: “Sister! Sister Gudule!”

She repeated the call three times, raising her voice each time. The recluse did not stir; there was not a word, not a look, not a sign of life.

Oudarde, in her turn, in a gentler and more affectionate tone, said, “Sister! holy Sister Gudule!”

The same silence, the same absolute repose as before.

“What a strange woman!” cried Gervaise; “I don’t believe she would mind a cannonade!”

“Perhaps she’s deaf,” said Oudarde.

“Maybe blind,” added Gervaise.

“Perhaps dead,” said Mahiette.

Certainly, if the soul had not already quitted that inert, torpid, lethargic body, it had at least withdrawn into it and concealed itself in depths to which the perceptions of the external organs did not penetrate.

“We shall have to leave the cake on the window-sill,” said Oudarde; “but then some boy will steal it. How can we rouse her?”

Eustache, who had thus far been absorbed in a little wagon drawn by a big dog, which was just passing, suddenly noticed that his three companions were looking at something through the window, and, seized by curiosity in his turn, he scrambled upon a post, stood on tiptoe, and put his fat, rosy face to the opening, shouting,

“Mother, let me see, too!”

At the sound of this childish voice, clear, fresh, and ringing, the recluse trembled. She turned her head with the abrupt, quick, motion of a steel spring, her long, thin hands brushed the hair from her face, and she fixed her astonished, unhappy, despairing eyes upon the child. The look was like a flash of lightning.

“Oh, my God!” she instantly exclaimed, hiding her head upon her knees, and it seemed as if her hoarse voice tore her chest, “at least do not show me those of others!”

“Good-morning, madame,” said the child, gravely.

But the shock had, as it were, aroused the recluse. A long shudder ran through her entire frame from head to foot; her teeth chattered; she half raised her head, and said, as she pressed her elbows to her sides and took her feet in her hands as if to warm them,—

“Oh, how bitterly cold!”

“Poor woman!” said Oudarde, pitifully; “would you like a little fire?”

She shook her head in token of refusal.

“Well,” added Oudarde, offering her a bottle, “here is some hippocras, which will warm you; drink.”

She again shook her head, looked steadily at Oudarde, and answered, “Water.”

Oudarde insisted. “No, sister, water is no fit drink for January. You must drink a little hippocras, and eat this wheaten cake, which we have made for you.”

She put aside the cake which Mahiette offered her, and said, “Some black bread.”

“Come,” said Gervaise, feeling a charitable impulse in her turn, and unfastening her woollen mantle, “here is a covering somewhat warmer than yours. Throw this over your shoulders.”

She refused the mantle as she had the bottle and the cake, and answered, “A cloth.”

“But,” resumed the kind-hearted Oudarde, “you must have seen that yesterday was a holiday.”

“I knew it,” said the recluse; “for two days I have had no water in my jug.”

She added after a pause: “On a holiday, every one forgets me. They do well. Why should people remember me, who never think of them? When the fire goes out, the ashes are soon cold.”

And as if wearied by so many words, she let her head fall upon her knees once more. The simple and