her famished heart upon
suffering. It was a cold, rainy winter's night. She did not feel the
cold or rain. All her senses were engaged in listening. The voice she
detested seemed at times to grow faint and die away beneath kisses, and
the notes it sang died in her throat as if stifled by lips placed upon
the song. The hours passed. Germinie was still at her post. She did not
think of going away. She waited, with no knowledge of what she was
waiting for. It seemed to her that she must remain there always, until
the end. The rain fell faster. The water from a broken gutter overhead
beat down upon her shoulders. Great drops glided down her neck. An icy
shiver ran up and down her back. The water dripped from her dress to the
ground. She did not notice it. She was conscious of no pain in any of
her limbs except the pain that flowed from her heart.

Well on toward morning there was a movement in the house, and footsteps
approached the door. Germinie ran and hid in a recess in the wall some
steps away, and from there saw a woman come out, escorted by a young
man. As she watched them walk away, she felt something soft and warm on
her hands that frightened her at first; it was a dog licking her, a
great dog that she had held in her lap many an evening, when he was a
puppy, in the _cremiere's_ back shop.

"Come here, Molosse!" Jupillon shouted impatiently twice or thrice in
the darkness.

The dog barked, ran back, returned and gamboled about her, and at last
entered the house. The door closed. The voices and singing lured
Germinie back to her former position against the shutter, and there she
remained, drenched by the rain, allowing herself to be drenched, as she
listened and listened, till morning, till daybreak, till the hour when
the masons on their way to work, with their dinner loaf under their
arms, began to laugh at her as they passed.

LVIII

Two or three days after that night in the rain, Germinie's features were
distorted with pain, her skin was like marble and her eyes blazing. She
said nothing, made no complaints, but went about her work as usual.

"Here! girl, look at me a moment," said mademoiselle, and she led her
abruptly to the window. "What does all this mean? this look of a dead
woman risen from the grave? Come, tell me honestly, are you sick? My
God! how hot your hands are!"

She grasped her wrist, and in a moment threw it down.

"What a silly slut! you're in a burning fever! And you keep it