logic.  The peril and calamity that overhung them all would vanish with that man; he in his grave, Jean, Prosper, Father Fouchard would have nothing more to fear, while she herself would retain possession of Charlot and there would be never a one in all the world to challenge her right to him.  All that day she turned and re-turned the project in her mind, devoid of further strength to bid it down, considering despite herself the murder in its different aspects, planning and arranging its most minute details.  And now it was become the one fixed, dominant idea, making a portion of her being, that she no longer stopped to reason on, and when finally she came to act, in obedience to that dictate of the inevitable, she went forward as in a dream, subject to the volition of another, a someone within her whose presence she had never known till then.

Father Fouchard had taken alarm, and on Sunday he dispatched a messenger to the francs-tireurs to inform them that their supply of bread would be forwarded to the quarries of Boisville, a lonely spot a mile and a quarter from the house, and as Prosper had other work to do the old man sent Silvine with the wheelbarrow.  It was manifest to the young woman that Destiny had taken the matter in its hands; she spoke, she made an appointment with Sambuc for the following evening, and there was no tremor in her voice, as if she were pursuing a course marked out for her from which she could not depart.  The next day there were still other signs which proved that not only sentient beings, but inanimate objects as well, favored the crime.  In the first place Father Fouchard was called suddenly away to Raucourt, and knowing he could not get back until after eight o’clock, instructed them not to wait dinner for him.  Then Henriette, whose night off it was, received word from the hospital late in the afternoon that the nurse whose turn it was to watch was ill and she would have to take her place; and as Jean never left his chamber under any circumstances, the only remaining person from whom interference was to be feared was Prosper.  It revolted the chasseur d’Afrique, the idea of killing a man that way, three against one, but when his brother arrived, accompanied by his faithful myrmidons, the disgust he felt for the villainous crew was lost in his detestation of the Prussians; sure he wasn’t going to put himself out to save one of the dirty hounds, even if they did do him up in a way that was not according to rule; and he settled matters with his conscience by going to bed and burying his head under the blankets, that he might hear nothing that would tempt him to act in accordance with his soldierly instincts.

It lacked a quarter of seven, and Charlot seemed determined not to go to sleep.  As a general thing his head declined upon the table the moment he had swallowed his last mouthful of soup.

“Come, my darling, go to sleep,” said Silvine, who had taken him to Henriette’s room; “mamma has put you in the nice lady’s big bed.”