he little shoe was. Then they dared not look; they no longer saw her;
but they heard a thousand kisses and a thousand sighs, mingled with
heartrending cries, and dull blows like those of a head in contact with
a wall. Then, after one of these blows, so violent that all three of
them staggered, they heard no more.

"Can she have killed herself?" said Gervaise, venturing to pass her head
through the air-hole. "Sister! Sister Gudule!"

"Sister Gudule!" repeated Oudarde.

"Ah! good heavens! she no longer moves!" resumed Gervaise; "is she dead?
Gudule! Gudule!"

Mahiette, choked to such a point that she could not speak, made an
effort. "Wait," said she. Then bending towards the window, "Paquette!"
she said, "Paquette le Chantefleurie!"

A child who innocently blows upon the badly ignited fuse of a bomb, and
makes it explode in his face, is no more terrified than was Mahiette
at the effect of that name, abruptly launched into the cell of Sister
Gudule.

The recluse trembled all over, rose erect on her bare feet, and leaped
at the window with eyes so glaring that Mahiette and Oudarde, and the
other woman and the child recoiled even to the parapet of the quay.

Meanwhile, the sinister face of the recluse appeared pressed to the
grating of the air-hole. "Oh! oh!" she cried, with an appalling laugh;
"'tis the Egyptian who is calling me!"

At that moment, a scene which was passing at the pillory caught her wild
eye. Her brow contracted with horror, she stretched her two skeleton
arms from her cell, and shrieked in a voice which resembled a
death-rattle, "So 'tis thou once more, daughter of Egypt! 'Tis thou
who callest me, stealer of children! Well! Be thou accursed! accursed!
accursed! accursed!"

CHAPTER IV. A TEAR FOR A DROP OF WATER.

These words were, so to speak, the point of union of two scenes, which
had, up to that time, been developed in parallel lines at the same
moment, each on its particular theatre; one, that which the reader has
just perused, in the Rat-Hole; the other, which he is about to read, on
the ladder of the pillory. The first had for witnesses only the three
women with whom the reader has just made acquaintance; the second had
for spectators all the public which we have seen above, collecting on
the Place de Greve, around the pillory and the gibbet.

That crowd which the four sergeants posted at nine o'clock in the
morning at the four corners of the pillory had inspired with the hope