-room, and reached the garden by way of a
sort of vestibule at the foot of the staircase between the salon and
the dining-room. Beyond a great glass door at the farther end of the
vestibule lay a flight of stone steps which adorned the garden side
of the house. The garden itself was divided into four large squares of
equal size by two paths that intersected each other in the form of a
cross, a box edging along their sides. At the farther end there was a
thick, green alley of hornbeam trees, which had been the joy and pride
of the late owner. The soldier seated himself on a worm-eaten bench, and
saw neither the trellis-work nor the espaliers, nor the vegetables of
which Jacquotte took such great care. She followed the traditions of the
epicurean churchman to whom this valuable garden owed its origin; but
Benassis himself regarded it with sufficient indifference.

The commandant turned their talk from the trivial matters which had
occupied them by saying to the doctor:

"How comes it, sir, that the population of the valley has been trebled
in ten years? There were seven hundred souls in it when you came, and
to-day you say that they number more than two thousand."

"You are the first person who has put that question to me," the doctor
answered. "Though it has been my aim to develop the capabilities of this
little corner of the earth to the utmost, the constant pressure of a
busy life has not left me time to think over the way in which (like the
mendicant brother) I have made 'broth from a flint' on a large scale.
M. Gravier himself, who is one of several who have done a great deal for
us, and to whom I was able to render a service by re-establishing his
health, has never given a thought to the theory, though he has been
everywhere over our mountain sides with me, to see its practical
results."

There was a moment's silence, during which Benassis followed his own
thoughts, careless of the keen glance by which his guest friend tried to
fathom him.

"You ask how it came about, my dear sir?" the doctor resumed. "It came
about quite naturally through the working of the social law by which the
need and the means of supplying it are correlated. Herein lies the whole
story. Races who have no wants are always poor. When I first came
to live here in this township, there were about a hundred and thirty
peasant families in it, and some two hundred hearths in the valley.
The local authorities were such as might be expected in the