Mauprat
ment he saw us he sprang up full of life from the bench on which he had thrown himself under the bower of vine-branches, and came to meet us.
"Patience!" he cried, in a dramatic style which would have made me smile had it been possible for me to display a glimmer of mirth at such a moment. "Old fool! . . . Slanderer at your age? . . . Fie, sir! . . . Ruined by good fortune . . . you are . . . yes."
Patience, impassive as ever, shrugged his shoulders and said to his friend:
"Marcasse, you do not know what you are saying. Go and rest awhile at the bottom of the orchard. This matter does not concern you. I want to speak to your master alone. I wish you to go," he added, taking him by the arm; and there was a touch of authority in his manner to which the sergeant, in spite of his ticklish pride, yielded from instinct and habit.
As soon as we were alone Patience proceeded to the point; he began by a series of questions to which I resolved to submit, so that I might the more quickly obtain some light on the state of affairs around me.
"Will you kindly inform me, monsieur," he said, "what you purpose doing now?"
"I purpose remaining with my family," I answered, "as long as I have a family; and when this family is no more, what I shall do concerns no one."
"But, sir," replied Patience, "if you were told that you could not remain under the same roof with them without causing the death of one or the other, would you persist in staying?"
"If I were convinced that this was so," I rejoined, "I would not appear in their presence. I would remain at their door and await the last day of their life, or the
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