peril, they understood, I will not say his thought, but his nature,
to such a degree that they no longer watched over him. They confided him
to God.

Moreover, Baptistine said, as we have just read, that her brother's end
would prove her own. Madame Magloire did not say this, but she knew it.

CHAPTER X--THE BISHOP IN THE PRESENCE OF AN UNKNOWN LIGHT

At an epoch a little later than the date of the letter cited in the
preceding pages, he did a thing which, if the whole town was to be
believed, was even more hazardous than his trip across the mountains
infested with bandits.

In the country near D---- a man lived quite alone. This man, we will
state at once, was a former member of the Convention. His name was G----

Member of the Convention, G---- was mentioned with a sort of horror in
the little world of D---- A member of the Convention--can you imagine
such a thing? That existed from the time when people called each other
thou, and when they said "citizen." This man was almost a monster.
He had not voted for the death of the king, but almost. He was a
quasi-regicide. He had been a terrible man. How did it happen that such
a man had not been brought before a provost's court, on the return of
the legitimate princes? They need not have cut off his head, if you
please; clemency must be exercised, agreed; but a good banishment for
life. An example, in short, etc. Besides, he was an atheist, like all
the rest of those people. Gossip of the geese about the vulture.

Was G---- a vulture after all? Yes; if he were to be judged by the
element of ferocity in this solitude of his. As he had not voted for the
death of the king, he had not been included in the decrees of exile, and
had been able to remain in France.

He dwelt at a distance of three-quarters of an hour from the city, far
from any hamlet, far from any road, in some hidden turn of a very wild
valley, no one knew exactly where. He had there, it was said, a sort
of field, a hole, a lair. There were no neighbors, not even passers-by.
Since he had dwelt in that valley, the path which led thither had
disappeared under a growth of grass. The locality was spoken of as
though it had been the dwelling of a hangman.

Nevertheless, the Bishop meditated on the subject, and from time to time
he gazed at the horizon at a point where a clump of trees marked the
valley of the former member of the Convention, and he said, "There is a
soul yonder which is lonely."

And