Page:Villette (1st edition).djvu/965

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OLD AND NEW ACQUAINTANCE
285

restless, turning her head now to this side, now that, looking through the trees, and among the crowd, as if expectant of an arrival and impatient of a delay. "Où sont-ils? Pourquoi ne viennent-ils?" I heard her mutter more than once; and at last, as if determined to have an answer to her question—which hitherto none seemed to mind, she spoke aloud this phrase—a phrase brief enough, simple enough, but it sent a shock through me—

"Messieurs et mesdames," said she, "où donc est Justine Marie?"

"Justine Marie!" What name was this? Justine Marie—the dead nun—where was she? Why in her grave, Madame Walravens—what can you want with her? You shall go to her, but she shall not come to you.

Thus I should have answered, had the response lain with me, but nobody seemed to be of my mind; nobody seemed surprised, startled, or at a loss. The quietest common-place answer met the strange, the dead-disturbing, the Witch-of-Endor query of the hunchback."

"Justine Marie," said one, "is coming; she is in the kiosk; she will be here presently."

Out of this question and reply sprang a change