A moment later the village bell clinked at slow regular intervals, to acquaint the flock with the death of one of their number.  In the sound that reached the cottage but faintly across the intervening space, there was a thought of religion which seemed to fill it with a melancholy peace.  The tread of many feet echoed up the road, giving notice of an approaching crowd of people—­a crowd that uttered not a word.  Then suddenly the chanting of the Church broke the stillness, calling up the confused thoughts that take possession of the most sceptical minds, and compel them to yield to the influence of the touching harmonies of the human voice.  The Church was coming to the aid of a creature that knew her not.  The cure appeared, preceded by a choir-boy, who bore the crucifix, and followed by the sacristan carrying the vase of holy water, and by some fifty women, old men, and children, who had all come to add their prayers to those of the Church.  The doctor and the soldier looked at each other, and silently withdrew to a corner to make room for the kneeling crowd within and without the cottage.  During the consoling ceremony of the Viaticum, celebrated for one who had never sinned, but to whom the Church on earth was bidding a last farewell, there were signs of real sorrow on most of the rough faces of the gathering, and tears flowed over the rugged cheeks that sun and wind and labor in the fields had tanned and wrinkled.  The sentiment of voluntary kinship was easy to explain.  There was not one in the place who had not pitied the unhappy creature, not one who would not have given him his daily bread.  Had he not met with a father’s care from every child, and found a mother in the merriest little girl?

“He is dead!” said the cure.

The words struck his hearers with the most unfeigned dismay.  The tall candles were lighted, and several people undertook to watch with the dead that night.  Benassis and the soldier went out.  A group of peasants in the doorway stopped the doctor to say: 

“Ah! if you have not saved his life, sir, it was doubtless because God wished to take him to Himself.”

“I did my best, children,” the doctor answered.

When they had come a few paces from the deserted village, whose last inhabitant had just died, the doctor spoke to Genestas.

“You would not believe, sir, what real solace is contained for me in what those peasants have just said.  Ten years ago I was very nearly stoned to death in this village.  It is empty to-day, but thirty families lived in it then.”

Genestas’ face and gesture so plainly expressed an inquiry, that, as they went along, the doctor told him the story promised by this beginning.