"It's agreed, my dear Abbe," he responded, "I shall be very pleased to spend my whole evening with you, for I feel it will do me good to follow you once more on one of those rambles which used to fill our hearts with grief and joy." At this moment the servant brought in the soup; however, just as the two priests were taking their seats a discreet ring was heard, and when Abbe Rose learnt that the visitor was a neighbour, Madame Mathis, who had come for an answer, he gave orders that she should be shown in.
"This poor woman," he explained to Pierre, "needed an advance of ten francs to get a mattress out of pawn; and I didn't have the money by me at the time.

But I've since procured it.

She lives in the house, you know, in silent poverty, on so small an income that it hardly keeps her in bread." "But hasn't she a big son of twenty ?" asked Pierre, suddenly remembering the young man he had seen at Salvat's.
"Yes, yes.

Her parents, I believe, were rich people in the provinces.
I've been told that she married a music master, who gave her lessons, at Nantes; and who ran away with her and brought her to Paris, where he died.

It was quite a doleful love-story.