eet.
Yet at this auction-sale he looked a distracted, if smiling, whimsical,
rather bustling figure of misfortune, with a tragic air of exile, of
isolation from all by which he was surrounded. A profound and wayworn
loneliness showed in his figure, in his face, in his eyes.

The crowd thinned in time, and yet very many lingered to see the last
of this drama of lost fortunes. A few of the riff-raff, who invariably
attend these public scenes, were now rather the worse for drink,
from the indifferent liquor provided by the auctioneer, and they were
inclined to horseplay and coarse chaff. More than one ribald reference
to Jean Jacques had been checked by his chivalrous fellow-citizens;
indeed, M. Fille had almost laid himself open to a charge of assault
in his own court by raising his stick at a loafer, who made insulting
references to Jean Jacques. But as the sale drew to a close, an air of
rollicking humour among the younger men would not be suppressed, and it
looked as though Jean Jacques' exit would be attended by the elements of
farce and satire.

In this world, however, things do not happen logically, and Jean Jacques
made his exit in a wholly unexpected manner. He was going away by the
train which left a new railway junction a few miles off, having gently
yet firmly declined M. Fille's invitation, and also the invitations of
others--including the Cure and Mere Langlois--to spend the night with
them and start off the next day. He elected to go on to Montreal that
very night, and before the sale was quite finished he prepared to start.
His carpet-bag containing a few clothes and necessaries had been sent on
to the junction, and he meant to walk to the station in the cool of the
evening.

M. Manotel, the auctioneer, hoarse with his heavy day's work, was
announcing that there were only a few more things to sell, and no doubt
they could be had at a bargain, when Jean Jacques began a tour of
the Manor. There was something inexpressibly mournful in this lonely
pilgrimage of the dismantled mansion. Yet there was no show of cheap
emotion by Jean Jacques; and a wave of the hand prevented any one from
following him in his dry-eyed progress to say farewell to these haunts
of childhood, manhood, family, and home. There was a strange numbness
in his mind and body, and he had a feeling that he moved immense and
reflective among material things. Only tragedy can produce that feeling.
Happiness makes the universe infinite and stup