She sat quite still and upright in the wagon with the dark lands rushing by her.

She never spoke at all.

She had a look that frightened him upon her face.

When he tried to touch her hand, she shivered away from him.
The charcoal-burner, hardy and strong among forest-reared men, cowered like a child in a corner, and covered his eyes and wept.
So the night wore away.
She had no perception of anything that happened to her until she was led through her own little garden in the early day, and her starling cried to her, "Bonjour, Bonjour!" Even then she only looked about her in a bewildered way, and never spoke.
Were the sixteen days a dream?
She did not know.
The women whom Jeannot summoned, his mother and sisters, and Mere Krebs, and one or two others, weeping for what had been the hardness of their hearts against her, undressed her, and laid her down on her little bed, and opened the shutters to the radiance of the sun.
She let them do as they liked, only she seemed neither to hear nor speak, and she never spoke.
All that Jeannot could tell was that he had found her in Paris, and had saved her from the river.
The women were sorrowful, and reproached themselves.

Perhaps she had done wrong, but they had been harsh, and she was so young.
The two little sabots with the holes worn through the soles touched them; and they blamed themselves for having shut their hearts and their doors against her as they saw the fixed blue eyes, without any light in them, and the pretty mouth closed close against either sob or smile.
After all she was Bebee--the little bright blithe thing that had danced with their children, and sung to their singing, and brought them always the first roses of the year.