the chanting of the Church broke the stillness, calling up the
confused thoughts that take possession of the most sceptical minds, and
compel them to yield to the influence of the touching harmonies of the
human voice. The Church was coming to the aid of a creature that knew
her not. The cure appeared, preceded by a choir-boy, who bore the
crucifix, and followed by the sacristan carrying the vase of holy water,
and by some fifty women, old men, and children, who had all come to add
their prayers to those of the Church. The doctor and the soldier looked
at each other, and silently withdrew to a corner to make room for the
kneeling crowd within and without the cottage. During the consoling
ceremony of the Viaticum, celebrated for one who had never sinned, but
to whom the Church on earth was bidding a last farewell, there were
signs of real sorrow on most of the rough faces of the gathering, and
tears flowed over the rugged cheeks that sun and wind and labor in the
fields had tanned and wrinkled. The sentiment of voluntary kinship was
easy to explain. There was not one in the place who had not pitied the
unhappy creature, not one who would not have given him his daily bread.
Had he not met with a father's care from every child, and found a mother
in the merriest little girl?

"He is dead!" said the cure.

The words struck his hearers with the most unfeigned dismay. The tall
candles were lighted, and several people undertook to watch with the
dead that night. Benassis and the soldier went out. A group of peasants
in the doorway stopped the doctor to say:

"Ah! if you have not saved his life, sir, it was doubtless because God
wished to take him to Himself."

"I did my best, children," the doctor answered.

When they had come a few paces from the deserted village, whose last
inhabitant had just died, the doctor spoke to Genestas.

"You would not believe, sir, what real solace is contained for me in
what those peasants have just said. Ten years ago I was very nearly
stoned to death in this village. It is empty to-day, but thirty families
lived in it then."

Genestas' face and gesture so plainly expressed an inquiry, that,
as they went along, the doctor told him the story promised by this
beginning.

"When I first settled here, sir, I found a dozen cretins in this part
of the canton," and the doctor turned round to point out the ruined
cottages for the officer's benefit. "All the favorable conditions for
spreading th