If my Agnes had been with me she would have seen our child, she would have heard that voice!  The great cold drops of moisture were on my forehead.  My limbs trembled, my heart fluttered in my bosom.  I could neither listen nor yet speak.  And those who would have spoken to me, those who loved me, sighing, went away.  It is not possible that such wretchedness should be credible to noble minds; and if it had not been for pride and for shame, I should have fled away straight to La Clairiere, to Put myself under shelter, to have some one near me who was less a coward than I. I, upon whom all the others relied, the Maire of the Commune!  I make my confession.  I was of no more force than this.

A voice behind me made me spring to my feet—­the leap of a mouse would have driven me wild.  I was altogether demoralised.  ’Monsieur le Maire, it is but I,’ said some one quite humble and frightened.

‘Tiens!—­it is thou, Jacques!’ I said.  I could have embraced him, though it is well known how little I approve of him.  But he was living, he was a man like myself.  I put out my hand, and felt him warm and breathing, and I shall never forget the ease that came to my heart.  Its beating calmed.  I was restored to myself.

‘M. le Maire,’ he said, ’I wish to ask you something.  Is it true all that is said about these people, I would say, these Messieurs?  I do not wish to speak with disrespect, M. le Maire.’

‘What is it, Jacques, that is said?’ I had called him ‘thou’ not out of contempt, but because, for the moment, he seemed to me as a brother, as one of my friends.

‘M. le Maire, is it indeed les morts that are in Semur?’

He trembled, and so did I.  ‘Jacques,’ I said, ’you know all that I know.’

’Yes, M. le Maire, it is so, sure enough.  I do not doubt it.  If it were the Prussians, a man could fight.  But ces Messieurs la! What I want to know is:  is it because of what you did to those little Sisters, those good little ladies of St. Jean?’

’What I did?  You were yourself one of the complainants.  You were of those who said, when a man is ill, when he is suffering, they torment him with their mass; it is quiet he wants, not their mass.  These were thy words, vaurien.  And now you say it was I!’

‘True, M. le Maire,’ said Jacques; ’but look you, when a man is better, when he has just got well, when he feels he is safe, then you should not take what he says for gospel.  It would be strange if one had a new illness just when one is getting well of the old; and one feels now is the time to enjoy one’s self, to kick up one’s heels a little, while at least there is not likely to be much of a watch kept up there—­the saints forgive me,’ cried Jacques, trembling and crossing himself, ’if I speak with levity at such a moment!  And the little ladies were very kind.  It was wrong to close their chapel, M. le Maire.  From that comes all our trouble.’