So, too,
from a present habit of thought, much may be surmised as to
what has been done and suffered in the past; and though little
was known about Jeanne-Marie, some inferences might have been
drawn concerning her former life, had any of her neighbours
been skilled in the inductive method, or been sufficiently
interested in the woman to study her character closely. But in
fact they cared very little about her. It is true that when
she had first come into the village, there had been many
conjectures about her set afloat. She did not belong to that
part of the country, she could not even speak the Liege
_patois_, and never took the trouble to learn it, invariably
using the French language. She had no belongings, and never
spoke of her former life; so that it was not long before a
vague, open-mouthed curiosity, seizing upon a thousand
untested hints and rumours to satisfy itself withal, led the
villagers to whisper among themselves that some strange
history was attached to her; and woe to that woman who, in a
small village, is accredited with a strange history that no
one knows anything about! But Jeanne-Marie had outlived all
this; her secrets, if she had any, were never revealed either
then or later, and in time people had ceased to trouble
themselves about her.
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