y way. Is not this indeed, to understand charity well? Is there
not, dear Madame, something truly evangelical in this delicacy which
abstains from sermon, from moralizing, from allusions? and is not the
truest pity, when a man has a sore point, not to touch it at all? It has
seemed to me that this might have been my brother's private thought. In
any case, what I can say is that, if he entertained all these ideas, he
gave no sign of them; from beginning to end, even to me he was the same
as he is every evening, and he supped with this Jean Valjean with the
same air and in the same manner in which he would have supped with M.
Gedeon le Provost, or with the curate of the parish.

"Towards the end, when he had reached the figs, there came a knock at
the door. It was Mother Gerbaud, with her little one in her arms. My
brother kissed the child on the brow, and borrowed fifteen sous which I
had about me to give to Mother Gerbaud. The man was not paying much
heed to anything then. He was no longer talking, and he seemed very much
fatigued. After poor old Gerbaud had taken her departure, my brother
said grace; then he turned to the man and said to him, 'You must be
in great need of your bed.' Madame Magloire cleared the table very
promptly. I understood that we must retire, in order to allow this
traveller to go to sleep, and we both went up stairs. Nevertheless, I
sent Madame Magloire down a moment later, to carry to the man's bed a
goat skin from the Black Forest, which was in my room. The nights are
frigid, and that keeps one warm. It is a pity that this skin is old; all
the hair is falling out. My brother bought it while he was in Germany,
at Tottlingen, near the sources of the Danube, as well as the little
ivory-handled knife which I use at table.

"Madame Magloire returned immediately. We said our prayers in the
drawing-room, where we hang up the linen, and then we each retired to
our own chambers, without saying a word to each other."

CHAPTER V--TRANQUILLITY

After bidding his sister good night, Monseigneur Bienvenu took one of
the two silver candlesticks from the table, handed the other to his
guest, and said to him,--

"Monsieur, I will conduct you to your room."

The man followed him.

As might have been observed from what has been said above, the house was
so arranged that in order to pass into the oratory where the alcove was
situated, or to get out of it, it was necessary to traverse the Bishop's
bedr