No one knew her reasons for taking up her abode in a country where she was an absolute stranger.

She was supposed to have come from Normandy, having been frequently seen in the early morning to wear a white cotton cap.
This night-cap did not prevent her dressing very smartly during the day; indeed, she ordinarily wore very handsome dresses, very showy ribbons in her caps, and covered herself with jewels like a saint in a chapel.
Without doubt she had lived on the coast, for ships and the sea recurred incessantly in her conversation.
She did not like speaking of her husband who had, she said, perished in a shipwreck.

But she had never given the slightest detail.

On one particular occasion she had remarked, in presence of the milk-woman and three other persons, "No woman was ever more miserable than I during my married life." And at another she had said, "All new, all fine! A new broom sweeps clean.

My defunct husband only loved me for a year!" Widow Lerouge passed for rich, or at the least for being very well off and she was not a miser.