“I’ll not refuse, for I am almost frozen to death.  I was telling you that the person who saved these young girls was a hero; and certainly his courage was beyond anything one could have imagined.  When I left here with the men of the farm, we descended the little winding path, and arrived at the foot of the cliff—­near the little creek of Goelands, fortunately somewhat sheltered from the waves by five or six enormous masses of rock stretching out into the sea.  Well, what should we find there?  Why, the two young girls I spoke of, in a swoon, with their feet still in the water, and their bodies resting against a rock, as though they had been placed there by some one, after being withdrawn from the sea.”

“Dear children! it is quite touching!” said M. Rodin, raising, as usual, the tip of his little finger to the corner of his right eye, as though to dry a tear, which was very seldom visible.

“What struck me was their great resemblance to each other,” resumed the bailiff; “only one in the habit of seeing them could tell the difference.”

“Twin—­sisters, no doubt,” said Madame Dupont.

“One of the poor things,” continued the bailiff, “held between her clasped hands a little bronze medal, which was suspended from her neck by a chain of the same material.”

Rodin generally maintained a very stooping posture; but at these last words of the bailiff, he drew himself up suddenly, whilst a faint color spread itself over his livid cheeks.  In any other person, these symptoms would have appeared of little consequence; but in Rodin, accustomed for long years to control and dissimulate his emotions, they announced no ordinary excitement.  Approaching the bailiff, he said to him in a slightly agitated voice, but still with an air of indifference:  “It was doubtless a pious relic.  Did you see what was inscribed on this medal?”

“No, sir; I did not think of it.”

“And the two young girls were like one another—­very much like, you say?”

“So like, that one would hardly know which was which.  Probably they are orphans, for they are dressed in mourning.”

“Oh! dressed in mourning?” said M. Rodin, with another start.

“Alas! orphans so young!” said Madame Dupont, wiping her eyes.

“As they had fainted away, we carried them further on to a place where the sand was quite dry.  While we were busy about this, we saw the head of a man appear from behind one of the rocks, which he was trying to climb, clinging to it by one hand; we ran to him, and luckily in the nick of time, for he was clean worn out, and fell exhausted into the arms of our men.  It was of him I spoke when I talked of a hero; for, not content with having saved the two young girls by his admirable courage, he had attempted to rescue a third person, and had actually gone back amongst the rocks and breakers—­but his strength failed him, and, without the aid of our men, he would certainly have been washed away from the ridge to which he clung.”