for I, a man, strong to wrestle with pain, was nightly
tempted to refuse to bear the burden of a sorrow like hers. Perhaps I
might actually have refused to bear it but for a thought of religion
which soothes my impatience and fills my heart with sweet illusions.
Even if we were not children of the same Father in heaven, La Fosseuse
would still be my sister in suffering!"

Benassis pressed his knees against his horse's sides, and swept ahead of
Commandant Genestas, as if he shrank from continuing this conversation
any further. When their horses were once more cantering abreast of each
other, he spoke again: "Nature has created this poor girl for sorrow,"
he said, "as she has created other women for joy. It is impossible to
do otherwise than believe in a future life at the sight of natures thus
predestined to suffer. La Fosseuse is sensitive and highly strung. If
the weather is dark and cloudy, she is depressed; she 'weeps when the
sky is weeping,' a phrase of her own; she sings with the birds; she
grows happy and serene under a cloudless sky; the loveliness of a bright
day passes into her face; a soft sweet perfume is an inexhaustible
pleasure to her; I have seen her take delight the whole day long in the
scent breathed forth by some mignonette; and, after one of those
rainy mornings that bring out all the soul of the flowers and give
indescribable freshness and brightness to the day, she seems to overflow
with gladness like the green world around her. If it is close and hot,
and there is thunder in the air, La Fosseuse feels a vague trouble
that nothing can soothe. She lies on her bed, complains of numberless
different ills, and does not know what ails her. In answer to my
questions, she tells me that her bones are melting, that she is
dissolving into water; her 'heart has left her,' to quote another of her
sayings.

"I have sometimes come upon the poor child suddenly and found her in
tears, as she gazed at the sunset effects we sometimes see here among
our mountains, when bright masses of cloud gather and crowd together
and pile themselves above the golden peaks of the hills. 'Why are you
crying, little one?' I have asked her. 'I do not know, sir,' has been
the answer; 'I have grown so stupid with looking up there; I have looked
and looked, till I hardly know where I am.' 'But what do you see there?'
'I cannot tell you, sir,' and you might question her in this way all the
evening, yet you would never draw a word from