about midday
I bought some milk and took it home for M. le Vicomte . The following morning when I entered the larger attic I found that Mme. la Marquise had fainted from inanition . I spent the whole of the day begging in the streets and dodging the guard , and even so I only collected four sous . I could have got more perhaps , only that at about midday the smell of food from an eating-house turned me sick and faint , and when I regained consciousness I found myself huddled up under a doorway and evening gathering in fast around me . If Mme. la Marquise could go two days without food I ought to go four . I struggled to my feet ; fortunately I had retained possession of my four sous , else of a truth I would not have had the courage to go back to the miserable attic which was the only home I knew . I was wending my way along as fast as I could -- for I knew that Mme. la Marquise would be getting terribly anxious -- when , just as I turned into the Rue Blanche , I spied two gentlemen -- obviously strangers , for they were dressed with a luxury and care with which we had long ceased to be familiar in Lyons -- walking rapidly towards me .