The same agent was instructed to claim the body of La
Lorraine, whenever she should sink under her malady, and have it decently
interred. After having installed Claire de Fermont in her apartment, Lady
d'Harville set out at once for Asnieres, accompanied by Saint Remy, in
order to conduct Fleur-de-Marie to Rudolph.
CHAPTER XXI.
HOPE.
The early days of spring approached, the sun began to resume his power, the
sky was pure, the air soft and mild. Fleur-de-Marie, leaning on the arm of
La Louve, tried her strength by walking in Dr Griffon's garden. The
vivifying warmth of the sun and the action of walking colored with a rosy
tint the pale, thin cheeks of Goualeuse; her peasant's costume having been
torn in the agitation attending the first assistance that had been rendered
her, she wore a dress of dark-blue merino, made loose, and only confined
around her delicate and slender waist by a woolen girdle.
"How pleasant the sun is!" said she to La Louve, stopping at the foot of a
hedge of green trees exposed to the south, and which surrounded a stone
bench. "Will you sit down here a moment, La Louve?"
"Is there any need of asking me if I will?" answered the wife of Martial,
shrugging her shoulders.
Then, taking from her neck her shawl, she folded it carefully, knelt down,
laid it on the slightly damp gravel of the walk, and said to La Goualeuse:
"Place yourself there.
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