was a thing the ancients had done in the strange tale which had taken possession of me.  M. le Cure looked at me with disapproval.  He said, ’I did not expect from M. le Maire anything that was disrespectful to religion.’  Heaven forbid that I should be disrespectful to religion at any time of life, but then it was impossible to me.  I remembered after that the tale of which I speak, which had so seized upon me, was in the sacred writings; but those who know me will understand that no sneer at these writings or intention of wounding the feelings of M. le Cure was in my mind.

I was seated one day upon a little inequality of the ground, leaning my back against a half-withered hawthorn, and dozing with my head in my hands, when a soothing, which always diffuses itself from her presence, shed itself over me, and opening my eyes, I saw my Agnes sitting by me.  She had come with some food and a little linen, fresh and soft like her own touch.  My wife was not gaunt and worn like me, but she was pale and as thin as a shadow.  I woke with a start, and seeing her there, there suddenly came a dread over me that she would pass away before my eyes, and go over to Those who were within Semur.  I cried ’Non, mon Agnes; non, mon Agnes: before you ask, No!’ seizing her and holding her fast in this dream, which was not altogether a dream.  She looked at me with a smile, that smile that has always been to me as the rising of the sun over the earth.

‘Mon ami,’ she said surprised, ’I ask nothing, except that you should take a little rest and spare thyself.’  Then she added, with haste, what I knew she would say, ’Unless it were this, mon ami.  If I were permitted, I would go into the city—­I would ask those who are there what is their meaning:  and if no way can be found—­no act of penitence.—­Oh! do not answer in haste!  I have no fear; and it would be to save thee.’

A strong throb of anger came into my throat.  Figure to yourself that I looked at my wife with anger, with the same feeling which had moved me when the deserters left us; but far more hot and sharp.  I seized her soft hands and crushed them in mine.  ‘You would leave me!’ I said.  ’You would desert your husband.  You would go over to our enemies!’

‘O Martin, say not so,’ she cried, with tears.  ’Not enemies.  There is our little Marie, and my mother, who died when I was born.’

‘You love these dead tyrants.  Yes,’ I said, ’you love them best.  You will go to—­the majority, to the strongest.  Do not speak to me!  Because your God is on their side, you will forsake us too.’

Then she threw herself upon me and encircled me with her arms.  The touch of them stilled my passion; but yet I held her, clutching her gown, so terrible a fear came over me that she would go and come back no more.

‘Forsake thee!’ she breathed out over me with a moan.  Then, putting her cool cheek to mine, which burned, ‘But I would die for thee, Martin.’