Father Jerome certainly lacked no mercy, and usually speaking, he lacked no firmness; but now he nearly felt himself overcome.  “You must compose yourself before I can speak calmly to you, my daughter—­before you can even understand what I shall say to you.  I will not even speak to you till you are again seated, and then I will tell you everything.  There—­remember now, I will tell you everything as it happened, and, as far as I know, all that did happen.  You must summon up your courage, my children, and show yourself worthy to have been the wife and sister of that great man whom you loved so well.”

“He is dead!” said Marie, speaking for the first time, and almost in a whisper.  “I know now that it is so,” and she threw herself into her sister’s lap, and embraced her knees.

The priest did not contradict her, but commenced a narrative, which he intended to convey to his listeners exactly the same impressions which were on his own mind.  In this, however, he failed.  He told them that de Lescure had been carried senseless from the field, and had been taken by Henri in a litter on the road towards St. Florent; that he himself had been present when the surgeon expressed an almost fatal opinion respecting the wound, but that the wounded man was still alive when he last saw him, and that, since then, he had heard no certain news respecting him.  Even this statement, which the priest was unable to make without many interruptions, acted rather as a relief than otherwise to Madame de Lescure.  She might, at any rate, see her husband again; and it was still possible that both the surgeon and Father Jerome might be wrong.  As soon as he had told his tale, she, forgetting her fatigue, and the difficulties which surrounded her, wanted immediately to resume her journey, and Father Jerome was equally anxious to learn how she and Marie had come so far, and how they intended to proceed.

Chapeau had in the mean time called on the old priest, and though he had found it almost impossible to make him understand what he wanted, or who the ladies were of whom he spoke, he had learnt that Father Jerome was in the chapel, and was as much gratified as he was surprised to hear it.  He had then hurried back, and though he had not put himself forward during the scene which has been just described, he had heard what had passed.

He now explained to Father Jerome the way in which they had left Chatillon, and journeyed on horseback from St. Laurent, and declared, at the same time with much truth, that it was quite impossible for them to proceed farther on their way that night.

“The poor brutes are dead beat,” said he.  “All the spurs in Poitou wouldn’t get them on a league.  The night will be pitch dark, too, and, above all, Madame and Mademoiselle would be killed.  They have already been on horseback all day—­and so they were yesterday:  it is quite clear they must rest here tonight.”

Chapeau’s arguments against their farther progress were conclusive, and as there was no better shelter to which to take them, Father Jerome led them into the little glebe.  “There is but one bed left in the place,” said he, as he entered the gate, “but you will be very welcome to that; you will find it poor enough; Father Bernard has shared it with me for the last two nights.  We poor Cures have not many luxuries to offer to our friends now.”