There was a little shop-girl, who toiled hard for daily bread, but she was a thousand times more honorable than the haughty woman of noble race that I had just married." "Have mercy, Octave." "Yes, and she fell a victim to her love for Montlouis.

Had he lived, he would have made her his wife.

After his death, she could no longer conceal her fault.

In small towns the people are without mercy; and when she left the hospital with her baby at her breast, the women pelted her with mud.

But for me," continued the Count, "she would have died of hunger.