As Parpon hastily entered, Madame Degardy hobbled out of the shadow of
the trees, and furtively watched the hut. When a light appeared, she
crept to the door, opened it stealthily upon the intruders of her home,
and stepped inside.
Parpon was kneeling by Elise, lifting up her head, and looking at her in
horrified distress.
With a shrill cry the old woman came forward and dropped on her knees at
the other side of Elise. Her hand, fumbling anxiously over the girl's
breast, met the hard and warty palm of the dwarf. She stopped suddenly,
raised the sputtering candle, and peered into his eyes with a vague,
wavering intensity. For minutes they knelt there, the silence clothing
them about, the body of the unconscious girl between them. A lost memory
was feeling blindly its way home again. By and by, out of an infinite
past, something struggled to the old woman's eyes, and Parpon's heart
almost burst in his anxiety. At length her look steadied. Memory,
recognition, showed in her face.
With a wild cry her gaunt arms stretched across, and caught the great
head to her breast.
"Where have you been so long, Parpon--my son?" she said.
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