Five minutes passed, and no one had moved except the little boy. With furtive glances and trembling hands he had crept to the old well in the corner and drunk a cup of the poisoned water. Then he crept back to his place. The second old man now rose, drew a deep breath and climbed the cellar stair. For a time he stood blinking, and mouthing his scattered teeth. He was trying to speak and could not. "What is it?" they called up to him. "What has happened?" He did not answer. He made inarticulate sounds, and suddenly with incredible speed, darted forward into the smoke and the sunlight. A little hand cold and wet crept into Jeanne Bergère's. She was vexed. She wished to go out of the cellar with the others; but the little hand clung to her so tightly that she could not free herself. Except for the old woman who had drunk from the well, and the old man, all in a heap at the foot of the cellar stair, they were alone. She and the little boy. "It is true," said the little boy, "at least I think it is true about the water...when...nobody was looking.... Please, please stay with me, Jeanne Bergère." "You drank when it was forbidden? That was very naughty, Charlie.... Good God, what am I saying--you poor baby--you poor baby." She snatched him into her arms, and held him with a kind of tigerish ferocity. "It hurts," said Charlie. "It hurts. It hurts me all over. It hurts worse all the time." "I will go for help," she said. "Wait." "Please do not go away." "You want to die?" The child nodded. "If I grow up, I should not be a man," he said. "You know what the doctor did to me?" "I know," she said briefly, "but you shan't die if I can help it." She could not help it. A few minutes after she had gone, his back strongly arched became rigid. His jaws locked and he died in the attitude of a wrestler making a bridge. The village street was full of smoke and Frenchmen. These were methodically fighting the fires and hunting the ruins for Germans. Jeanne Bergère seized one of the little soldiers by the elbow. "Come quickly," she said, "there is a child poisoned!" The Idiot turned, and she would have fallen if he had not caught her. She tore herself loose from his arms with a kind of ferocity. "Come! Come!" she cried, and she ran like a frightened animal back to the cellar door, the Idiot close behind her. The Idiot knelt by the dead child, and after feeling in vain for any pulsation, straightened up and said: "He is dead." "He drank from the well," said Jeanne. "We told him that it was poisoned. But he was so thirsty." They tried to straighten the little boy, but could not. The Idiot rose to his feet, and looked at her for the first time. He must have made some motion with his hands, for she cried suddenly: "Don't! You mustn't touch me!" "We have always loved each other," he said simply. "You don't understand." "What have you been through? I understand. Kiss me." She held him at arm's length.