But now they were all on their way to Meaux; the fields were quite deserted.  Urged by one desire, to ascertain the facts of the trial, and the time when the sentence would be executed, the laborers were returning to the town.

Without demonstration of any emotion, Jacqueline Gabrie, quiet, silent, walked along the river-bank, until she came to the clump of chestnut-trees, whose shadow fell across the stream.  Many a time, through the hot, dreadful day, her eyes turned wistfully to this place.  In the morning Elsie Meril had promised Jacqueline that at twilight they would read together here the leaves the poor old mother of Leclerc gave Jacqueline last night:  when they had read them, they would walk home by starlight together.  But now the time had come, and Jacqueline was alone.  Elsie had returned to town with other young harvesters.

“Very well,” said Jacqueline, when Elsie told her she must go.  It was not, indeed, inexplicable that she should prefer the many voices to the one,—­excitement and company, rather than quiet, dangerous thinking.

But, thus left alone, the face of Jacqueline expressed both sorrow and indignation.  She would exact nothing of Elsie; but latterly how often had she expected of her companion more than she gave or could give!

Of course the young girl was equal to others in pity and surprise; but there were people in the world beside the wool-comber and his mother.  Nothing of vast import was suggested by his sentence to her mind.  She did not see that spiritual freedom was threatened with destruction.  If she heard the danger questioned, she could not apprehend it.  Though she had listened to the preaching of Leclerc and had been moved by it, her sense of truth and of justice was not so acute as to lead her willingly to incur a risk in the maintaining of the same.

She would not look into Antonine’s Bible, which Jacqueline had read so much during the last fortnight.  She was not the girl to torment herself about her soul, when the Church would save it for her by mere compliance with a few easy regulations.

More and more was Elsie disappointing Jacqueline.  Day by day these girls were developing in ways which bade fair to separate them in the end.  When now they had most need of each other, their estrangement was becoming more apparent and decided.  The peasant-dress of Elsie would not content her always, Jacqueline said sadly to herself.

Jacqueline’s tracts, indeed, promised poorly as entertainment for an hour of rest;—­rest gained by hours of toil.  The confusion of tongues and the excitement of the city pleased Elsie better.  So she went along the road to Meaux, and was not talking, neither thinking, all the way, of the wrongs of John Leclerc, and the sorrows of his mother,—­neither meditating constantly, and with deep-seated purpose, “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me!”—­neither on this problem, agitated then in so many earnest minds, “What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”