Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/95

Rh She found it sweet to bear hardship for the sake of this hunted outcast. The stepmother dragged her along the ground, utterly exasperated at so much calmness.

Then, indifferent to suffering and obstinate in her self-sacrifice, Blandine began to sing the Ave Maris Stella, one of the canticles for the month of May. Under the blows which rained upon her, the child recalled to her memory the dry sound of the fan on Ariaan's knee. Fainting, but morally unconquerable, she mixed the two songs, the church canticle and the labourer's song, and closing her eyes she confounded in one fervent memory the fumes of incense and the dust arising from the fan, the perfumes of the church with the odour of the rustic's sweat:—

Seeing her covered with blood, the wretch dragged her into the pigsty, shut her up there, making one of the children take her a pitcher of water and a chunk of bread. The next day the rough market-woman endeavoured to return to the charge, but she would have herself broken down sooner