although nearly four months old, that there seemed to be nothing but her
beautiful big eyes in her pale little face.

"Well, what is the matter?" asked Seguin, in astonishment.

"The matter, is, my friend, that I have just found Marie lying across
the cradle as drunk as a market porter, and half stifling the child. If
I had been a few moments later it would have been all over. Drunk at ten
o'clock in the morning! Can one understand such a thing? I had noticed
that she drank, and so I hid the liqueurs, for I hoped to be able to
keep her, since her milk is so good. But do you know what she had
drunk? Why, the methylated spirits for the warmer! The empty bottle had
remained beside her."

"But what did she say to you?"

"She simply wanted to beat me. When I shook her, she flew at me in a
drunken fury, shouting abominable words. And I had time only to escape
with the little one, while she began barricading herself in the room,
where she is now smashing the furniture! There! just listen!"

Indeed, a distant uproar of destruction reached them. They looked one at
the other, and deep silence fell, full of embarrassment and alarm.

"And then?" Seguin ended by asking in his curt dry voice.

"Well, what can I say? That woman is a brute beast, and I can't leave
Andree in her charge to be killed by her. I have brought the child here,
and I certainly shall not take her back. I will even own that I won't
run the risk of going back to the room. You will have to turn the girl
out of doors, after paying her wages."

"I! I!" cried Seguin. Then, walking up and down as if spurring on the
anger which was rising within him, he burst forth: "I've had enough, you
know, of all these idiotic stories! This house has become a perfect
hell upon earth all through that child! There will soon be nothing but
fighting here from morning till night. First of all it was pretended
that the nurse whom I took the trouble to choose wasn't healthy. Well,
then a second nurse is engaged, and she gets drunk and stifles the
child. And now, I suppose, we are to have a third, some other vile
creature who will prey on us and drive us mad. No, no, it's too
exasperating, I won't have it."

Valentine, her fears now calmed, became aggressive. "What won't you
have? There is no sense in what you say. As we have a child we must have
a nurse. If I had spoken of nursing the little one myself you would have
told me I was a fool. You would have found the house more uninha