A bed, a table and two wooden benches constituted the entire furniture.

Seated upon a stool, near the tiny window, sat Marie-Anne, busily at
work upon a piece of embroidery.

She had abandoned her former mode of dress, and her costume was that
worn by the peasant girls.

When M. d'Escorval entered she rose, and for a moment they remained
silently standing, face to face, she apparently calm, he visibly
agitated.

He was looking at Marie-Anne; and she seemed to him transfigured. She
was much paler and considerably thinner; but her beauty had a strange
and touching charm--the sublime radiance of heroic resignation and of
duty nobly fulfilled.

Still, remembering his son, he was astonished to see this tranquillity.

"You do not ask me for news of Maurice," he said, reproachfully.

"I had news of him this morning, Monsieur, as I have had every day. I
know that he is improving; and that, since day before yesterday, he has
been allowed to take a little nourishment."

"You have not forgotten him, then?"

She trembled; a faint blush suffused throat and forehead, but it was in
a calm voice that she replied: