chaperoning. Her face, too, was inexpressibly virginal in its
expression of innocence and of melancholy suffering. She was like
a figure of Resignation.

One day the girl's face was transfigured. In the midst of all the
debauches mapped out by her mother, it seemed to her as if God
had left over for her one happiness. And why indeed should God,
who had made her without strength, have left her without
consolation, under the sorrowful burden of her life? One day,
then, she realized that she was to have a child, and all that
remained to her of chastity leaped for joy. The soul has strange
refuges. Louise ran to tell the good news to her mother. It is a
shameful thing to speak of, but we are not telling tales of
pleasant sins; we are telling of true facts, which it would be
better, no doubt, to pass over in silence, if we did not believe
that it is needful from time to time to reveal the martyrdom of
those who are condemned without bearing, scorned without judging;
shameful it is, but this mother answered the daughter that they
had already scarce enough for two, and would certainly not have
enough for three; that such children are useless, and a lying-in
is so much time lost.

Next day a midwife, of whom all we will say is that she was a
friend of the mother, visited Louise, who remained in bed for a
few days, and then got up paler and feebler than before.

Three months afterward a man took pity on her and tried to heal
her, morally and physically; but the last shock had been too
violent, and Louise died of it. The mother still lives; how? God
knows.