I suspect she's crying her eyes out."
But the clerk was mistaken. Mademoiselle Marguerite was then
questioning M. Casimir respecting the arrangements which he had
made for the funeral, and when this sad duty was concluded, she
consented to take a little food standing in front of the sideboard
in the dining-room. Then she went to kneel in the count's room,
where four members of the parochial clergy were reciting the
prayers for the dead.
She was so exhausted with fatigue that she could scarcely speak,
and her eyelids were heavy with sleep. But she had another task
to fulfil, a task which she deemed a sacred duty. She sent a
servant for a cab, threw a shawl over her shoulders, and left the
house accompanied by Madame Leon. The cabman drove as fast as
possible to the house where Pascal and his mother resided in the
Rue d'Ulm; but on arriving there, the front door was found to be
closed, and the light in the vestibule was extinguished.
Marguerite was obliged to ring five or six times before the
concierge made his appearance.
"I wish to see Monsieur Ferailleur," she quietly said.
The man glanced at her scornfully, and then replied: "He no longer
lives here. The landlord doesn't want any thieves in his house.
He's sold his rubbish and started for America, with his old witch
of a mother."
So saying he closed the door again, and Marguerite was so
overwhelmed by this last and unexpected misfortune, that she could
hardly stagger back to the vehicle.
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