in the middle of the room.  It was nothing; yet how much was in this! though only myself could have perceived it.  Some of the old drawers were open, full of old papers.  I glanced over there in my agitation, to see if there might be any writing, any message addressed to me; but there was nothing, nothing but this silent sign of those who had been here.  Naturally M. le Cure, who kept watch at the door, was unacquainted with the cause of my emotion.  The last room I entered was my wife’s.  Her veil was lying on the white bed, as if she had gone out that moment, and some of her ornaments were on the table.  It seemed to me that the atmosphere of mystery which filled the rest of the house was not here.  A ribbon, a little ring, what nothings are these?  Yet they make even emptiness sweet.  In my Agnes’s room there is a little shrine, more sacred to us than any altar.  There is the picture of our little Marie.  It is covered with a veil, embroidered with needlework which it is a wonder to see.  Not always can even Agnes bear to look upon the face of this angel, whom God has taken from her.  She has worked the little curtain with lilies, with white and virginal flowers; and no hand, not even mine, ever draws it aside.  What did I see?  The veil was boldly folded away; the face of the child looked at me across her mother’s bed, and upon the frame of the picture was laid a branch of olive, with silvery leaves.  I know no more but that I uttered a great cry, and flung myself upon my knees before this angel-gift.  What stranger could know what was in my heart?  M. le Cure, my friend, my brother, came hastily to me, with a pale countenance; but when he looked at me, he drew back and turned away his face, and a sob came from his breast.  Never child had called him father, were it in heaven, were it on earth.  Well I knew whose tender fingers had placed the branch of olive there.

I went out of the room and locked the door.  It was just that my wife should find it where it had been laid.

I put my arm into his as we went out once more into the street.  That moment had made us brother and brother.  And this union made us more strong.  Besides, the silence and the emptiness began to grow less terrible to us.  We spoke in our natural voices as we came out, scarcely knowing how great was the difference between them and the whispers which had been all we dared at first to employ.  Yet the sound of these louder tones scared us when we heard them, for we were still trembling, not assured of deliverance.  It was he who showed himself a man, not I; for my heart was overwhelmed, the tears stood in my eyes, I had no strength to resist my impressions.

‘Martin Dupin,’ he said suddenly, ’it is enough.  We are frightening ourselves with shadows.  We are afraid even of our own voices.  This must not be.  Enough!  Whosoever they were who have been in Semur, their visitation is over, and they are gone.’

‘I think so,’ I said faintly; ‘but God knows.’  Just then something passed me as sure as ever man passed me.  I started back out of the way and dropped my friend’s arm, and covered my eyes with my hands.  It was nothing that could be seen; it was an air, a breath.  M. le Cure looked at me wildly; he was as a man beside himself.  He struck his foot upon the pavement and gave a loud and bitter cry.