"I tell you I'll remain here until I find the means to earn my living elsewhere with the children; alone, I should not be embarrassed. I should return to the woods; but, on their account, I want more time to find out what I want. Until then I remain." "Ah! you remain until you can take away the children?" "As you say!" "Take away the children?" "When I say to them come, they will come, and running too, I answer for it." The widow shrugged her shoulders, and replied, "Listen to me. I told you, just now, if you were to live a thousand years, you would remember this night. I am going to explain to you why; but once more, have you well decided not to go?" "Yes! yes! a thousand times, yes!" "Directly you will say no! a thousand times, no! Listen to me well. Do you know what trade your brother follows?" "I suspect, but I do not want to know." "You shall know. He steals." "So much the worse for him." "And for you." "For me?" "He is a burglar, a galley affair; we receive his plunder; if it is discovered, we shall be condemned to the same punishment as receivers, and you also; the family will be carried off, and the children will be turned into the streets, where they will learn the trade of your father and grandfather quite as well as here." "I arrested as a receiver, as your accomplice! On what proof?" "No one knows how you live; you are a vagrant on the water--you have the reputation of a bad man--you live with us. Who will you make believe that you are ignorant of our doings?" "I will prove the contrary." "We will accuse you as our accomplice." "Accuse me! why?" "To reward you for remaining here in spite of us." "Just now you wished to alarm me in one way; now it is in another; that don't take. I shall prove that I have never stolen. I remain." "Ah! you remain? Listen, then, once more; do you remember what happened last Christmas night?" "Christmas night?" said Martial, endeavoring to collect his thoughts. "Recollect well." "I do not recollect." "You do not remember that Bras-Rouge brought here at night a man well dressed, who wished to be concealed?" "Yes, now I remember; I went upstairs to bed, and I left him at supper with you. He passed the night here; before daylight Nicholas took him to Saint Ouen." "You are sure Nicholas took him to Saint Ouen." "You told me so the next morning!" "Christmas night you were then here?" "Yes. Well?" "On that night that man, who had much money with him, was killed in this house." "He! Here!" "And robbed, and buried in the little wood-house." "It is not true," cried Martial, becoming pale with alarm, and not willing to believe in this new crime of his kindred. "You wish to alarm me. Once more I say it is not true." "Ask your pet, Francois, what he saw in the wood-house." "Francois, what did he see?" "One of the feet of the man sticking out of the ground. Take the lantern; go there, and satisfy yourself."