"How do I know," asked Pierre slowly, after a long pause, "that what you think about this may not be a mistake?" Marcelline made an impatient gesture, but he went calmly on: "They say Mons. Alphège is a good doctor, and that he is fond of sa belle-mère. How can I take a man's life on a mere suspicion?" She almost flew at him in her frenzy, but the darkness so shielded her that he did not see the movement, which was as well. She controlled herself instantly, and only said in reply, "Thou hast not been always so careful of white life, mon ami--so unwilling to shed white blood." "Ah, bah!" retorted he: "that was when I could not be detected, and when more than life was in question. But now to kill this man would be to suffer death myself in the next hour, and to know that my wife and children were punished as well. Besides," he continued, as if trying to reason with her, "you have told me nothing which convinces me that what you say is true." "Listen, then," she said, raising her head, which had sunk upon her breast. "You do not believe that he is starving her to death: you think she has all the food required by one in her weak and perishing condition. You think her cries, her prayers, her agony of desire for nourishment--for nourishment!--are only the result of sickness, and that if she had it she could not eat. Bien! Every morning, when I go into her room to dress her blisters with fresh poultices, I find the old ones torn off and eaten up! Tell me, Pierre, have any of our kin, in their worst straits of hunger and suffering, done worse than that?" She spoke in a low voice, but it was freighted with such an intensity of horror and misery that the man beside her could not speak for an instant. When he did, he said in tones of the deepest feeling, "Ma pauvre maîtresse! ma pauvre maîtresse!" "Do you still refuse?" hissed Marcelline. The answer was compassionate, but resolved: "I do, Marcelline. Not even for her sake can I risk all. _You_ know I have nearly saved enough money to buy my freedom. Once free, I shall soon purchase Sophie and the young ones: I cannot abandon such hopes even to save her." There was a moment's silence. "May God help me, then!" said the woman as she rose, "for I swear by the Blessed Sacrament to save her if she be still alive--to revenge her if she be dead." * * * * *