The next day Camille kept his bed and I my room.  By this I at least escaped the first onset of local curiosity, for the villagers naturally made of Camille’s restoration a nine-days’ wonder.  But towards evening Madame Barbiere brought a message from him that he would like to see Monsieur alone, if Monsieur would condescend to visit him in his room.  I went at once, and found him, as Haydon found Keats, lying in a white bed, hectic, and on his back.  He greeted me with a smile peculiarly sweet and restful.

“Does Monsieur wish to know?” he said in a low voice.

“If it will not hurt thee, Camille.”

“Not now—­not now; the good God has made me sound.  I remember, and am not terrified.”

I closed the door and took a seat by his bedside.  There, with my hand shading my eyes from the level glory of sunset that flamed into the room, I listened to the strange tale of Camille’s seizure.

* * * * *

“Once, Monsieur, I lived in myself and was exultant with a loneliness of fancied knowledge.  My youth was my excuse; but God could not pardon me all.  I read where I could find books, and chance put an evil choice in my way, for I learned to sneer at His name, His heaven, His hell.  Each man has his god in self-will, I thought in my pride, and through it alone he accepts the responsibility of life and death.  He is his own curse or blessing here and hereafter, inheriting no sin and earning no doom but such as he himself inflicts upon himself.  I interpret this from the world about me, and knowing it, I have no fear and own no tyrant but my own passions.  Monsieur, it was through fear the most terrible that God asserted Himself to me.”

The light was fading in the west, and a lance of shadow fell upon the white bed, as though the hushed day were putting a finger to its lips as it withdrew.

“I was no coward then, Monsieur—­that at least I may say.  I lived among the mountains, and on their ledges the feet of my own goats were not surer.  Often, in summer, I spent the night among the woods and hills, reading in them the story of the ages, and exploring, exploring till my feet were wearier than my brain.  Strangers came from far to see the great cascade; but none but I—­and you, too, Monsieur, now—­know the track through the thicket that leads to the cave under the waters.  I found it by chance, and, like you, was scorched by the fire, though not badly.”

“Camille—­the cause?”

“Monsieur, I will tell you a wonderful thing.  The falling waters there make a monstrous burning glass, when the hot sun is upon them, which has melted the rock behind like wax.”

“Can that be so?”

“It is true—­dear Jesus, I have fearful reason to know it.”

He half rose on his elbow, his face, crossed by the bandage, grey as stone in the gathering dusk.  Hereafter he spoke in an awed whisper.