d, the poor young man! Poor
Francois! My God! my God!"

Yes, it is Benoit Iscariotes.

Everyone springs to him. A great tragedy has occurred--for Dormilliere;
perhaps little for a more experienced world. In Benoit's mind quivers a
scene that has set shouting all the wild voices of his conscience.
Ever-cheerful Francois, so full of life, so faithful, well named
"Vadeboncoeur," lies motionless upon the highway, deadly white, with
glazed, half-closed eyes. Blood trickles from his open mouth, scatters
from a frightful gash over his forehead, and bathes the ground in a
dark pool; and a heavy stone lies near and relates its murderous tale.
This is what guilty Jean-Benoit saw at his feet, as, having finished his
"labors" to his own satisfaction he was returning from Misericorde in
the footsteps of his coadjutor Cuiller. O, as the poor body lay in the
blood like a judgment before him, and those half-closed eyes seemed to
gleam at him from their lids, what a fearful blow did Conscience strike
that hypocrite, leaping from the lair in which it had long lain in wait!

He cannot stir. A mighty thunder cloud rises up from behind high above
him, and darkens the earth. A silence lies on the trees, the road, the
moor, and all around to the horizon--a silence accusing him.

Not a leaf moved. The sun went down. The bright little narrow gleam
under the eyelids of the dead stared slily up to him with an awful
triumph. His heart was caught by the grip of a skeleton hand. He could
feel its several sinews as they tightened their grasp. It was impossible
to break away--the grip of the hand was on the heart in, his breast, and
he was in the power of the triumphant _corpse_!

What made him reel, what made him leap at length with such an insane
cry, over the ghastly obstacle? He will go mad. This not quite balanced
brain might coldly enough commit even some kinds of murder, but fright
can unhinge it. Is he not mad, to flee so wildly? He runs--he runs--he
gropes, under his black thundercloud and load of fright and agony,
towards the glimmer that he must fly to those he has wronged. To her
first--to Josephte, his cruelly-treated daughter--the hour tells him
where she is! Flying, stumbling, pained, groaning, out of breath,
fearing the lone hedges of the road, in wild struggle throwing his vain
lust of appearances for once to the winds, and having behind and above
him as he fled, the sky filled with vast pursuing shapes, with shrieks
and curses,