Jill murmured. 'Had you no one?—no one at all? Were there no relations to care what became of her and you?'
'No one at all. My grandmother, the one who lived here, died of grief, before my mother's trial came on. My father had lost his parents; two old aunts of his would have taken me, but they were my mother's enemies.'
'And you were so poor,' Jill mused on her. 'How did you manage all those years? You could not work then.'
'My mother had her little fortune; it almost all went to pay the expenses of her defence; but there was a little left.'
Jill wondered how she should question further; but Marthe Ludérac, after the pause which followed her last words, continued to speak. 'It was un crime passionnel,' she said. 'There were extenuating circumstances. That was why she was set at liberty. And to see her, half dying, appear before them, with her bandaged head; that, too, softened their hearts.'
'You were there? At her trial?'
'I was a witness.'
'But you were so young—'
'I had seen it all,' said Marthe Ludérac. 'Yes; I was young, but I think that from the beginning I had understood it all. Joseph and I, and the young woman's husband, were the chief witnesses.'
She needed no questioning. Jill saw that she would tell her everything. For the first time in her life she
