“I dared not think it,” murmured Madame Graslin.

She had turned as white as wax.  To hide her face she laid her forehead on the balustrade, and kept it there several minutes.  Farrabesche did not know whether he ought to go or remain.

Madame Graslin raised her head at last, looked at Farrabesche with an almost majestic air, and said, to his amazement, in a voice that stirred his heart:—­

“Thank you, my friend.  But,” she added, after a pause, “where did you find courage to live and suffer?”

“Ah! madame, Monsieur Bonnet put a treasure within my soul! and for that I love him better than all else on earth.”

“Better than Catherine?” said Madame Graslin, smiling with a sort of bitterness.

“Almost as well, madame.”

“How did he do it?”

“Madame, the words and the voice of that man conquered me.  Catherine brought him to that hole in the ground I showed you on the common; he had come fearlessly alone.  He was, he said, the new rector of Montegnac; I was his parishioner, he loved me; he knew I was only misguided, not lost; he did not intend to betray me, but to save me; in short, he said many such things that stirred my soul to its depths.  That man, madame, commands you to do right with as much force as those who tell you to do wrong.  It was he who told me, poor dear man, that Catherine was a mother, and that I was dooming two beings to shame and desertion.  ‘Well,’ I said to him, ’they are like me; I have no future.’  He answered that I had a future, two bad futures, before me —­one in another world, one in this world—­if I persisted in not changing my way of life.  In this world, I should die on the scaffold.  If I were captured my defence would be impossible.  On the contrary, if I took advantage of the leniency of the new government toward all crimes traceable to the conscription, if I delivered myself up, he believed he could save my life; he would engage a good lawyer, who would get me off with ten years at the galleys.  Then Monsieur Bonnet talked to me of the other life.  Catherine wept like the Magdalen—­See, madame,” said Farrabesche, holding out his right arm, “her face was in that hand, and I felt it wet with tears.  She implored me to live.  Monsieur Bonnet promised to secure me, when I had served my sentence, a peaceful life here with my child, and to protect me against affront.  He catechised me as he would a little child.  After three such visits at night he made me as supple as a glove.  Would you like to know how, madame?”

Farrabesche and Madame Graslin looked at each other, not explaining to themselves their mutual curiosity.