Despite the famine which prevailed in Paris, the outcasts found at the door of their lodging rations of white bread which were regularly brought there by invisible hands; nevertheless, they believed that they could recognize in Mucius Scaevola the mysterious agent of that benefaction, which was always as ingenious as it was discerning. The noble occupants of the attic could not doubt that their protector was the person who had come to ask the priest to celebrate the expiatory mass on the night of the twenty-second of January, 1793; so that he became the object of a peculiar cult of worship to those three beings, who had no hope except in him, and lived only through him. They had added special prayers for him to their devotions; night and morning those pious hearts lifted their voices for his happiness, for his prosperity, for his health, and supplicated God to deliver him from all snares, to deliver him from his enemies, and to accord him a long and peaceable life. Their gratitude, renewed every day, so to speak, was necessarily accompanied by a sentiment of curiosity which became more lively from day to day. The circumstances which had accompanied the appearance of the Stranger were the subject of their conversations; they formed a thousand conjectures regarding him, and the diversion afforded them by their thoughts of him was a benefaction of a new kind. They promised themselves not to allow the Stranger to evade their friendship on the evening when he should return, according to his promise, to commemorate the sad anniversary of the death of Louis XVI. That night, so impatiently awaited, came at last. At midnight the sound of the Stranger’s heavy steps was heard on the old wooden staircase; the room had been arrayed to receive him, the altar was dressed. This time the sisters opened the door beforehand and both pressed forward to light the stairway. Mademoiselle de Langeais even went down a few steps in order to see her benefactor the sooner. “Come,” she said to him in a tremulous and affectionate voice, “come, we are waiting for you.” The man raised his head, cast a sombre glance upon the nun, and made no reply. She felt as if a garment of ice had fallen upon her, and she said no more; at his aspect the gratitude and curiosity expired in all their hearts. He was perhaps less cold, less taciturn, less terrible, than he appeared to those hearts, the exaltation of whose feelings disposed to outpourings of friendliness. The three poor prisoners, understanding that the man desired to remain a Stranger to them, resigned themselves. The priest fancied that he detected upon the Stranger’s lips a smile that was promptly repressed the moment he saw the preparations that had been made to receive him. He heard the mass, and prayed; but he disappeared after having responded negatively to a few words of polite invitation upon the part of Mademoiselle de Langeais to partake of the little collation they had prepared.