e
somewhere; but, I had never seen it break out, until I saw it in the
dying boy.

"'Nevertheless, Doctor, my sister married. He was ailing at that time,
poor fellow, and she married her lover, that she might tend and comfort
him in our cottage--our dog-hut, as that man would call it. She had
not been married many weeks, when that man's brother saw her and
admired her, and asked that man to lend her to him--for what are
husbands among us! He was willing enough, but my sister was good and
virtuous, and hated his brother with a hatred as strong as mine. What
did the two then, to persuade her husband to use his influence with
her, to make her willing?'

"The boy's eyes, which had been fixed on mine, slowly turned to the
looker-on, and I saw in the two faces that all he said was true. The
two opposing kinds of pride confronting one another, I can see, even in
this Bastille; the gentleman's, all negligent indifference; the
peasant's, all trodden-down sentiment, and passionate revenge.

"'You know, Doctor, that it is among the Rights of these Nobles to
harness us common dogs to carts, and drive us. They so harnessed him
and drove him. You know that it is among their Rights to keep us in
their grounds all night, quieting the frogs, in order that their noble
sleep may not be disturbed. They kept him out in the unwholesome mists
at night, and ordered him back into harness in the day. But he was not
persuaded. No! Taken out of harness one day at noon, to feed--if he
could find food--he sobbed twelve times, once for every stroke of the
bell, and died on her bosom.'

"Nothing human could have held life in the boy but his determination to
tell all his wrong. He forced back the gathering shadows of death, as
he forced his clenched right hand to remain clenched, and to cover his
wound.

"'Then, with that man's permission and even with his aid, his brother
took her away; in spite of what I know she must have told his
brother--and what that is, will not be long unknown to you, Doctor, if
it is now--his brother took her away--for his pleasure and diversion,
for a little while. I saw her pass me on the road. When I took the
tidings home, our father's heart burst; he never spoke one of the words
that filled it. I took my young sister (for I have another) to a place
beyond the reach of this man, and where, at least, she will never be
his vassal. Then, I tracked the brother here, and last night climbed
in--a common dog