"But, Pierre," I said, shivering, though the sun was already shining hotly--"Pierre, the house is like a lazaretto. No one has been in it since Mademoiselle Pineau died. Monsieur le Curé locked it up, and brought away the key." "That is true, madame," answered the boy; "no one in the village would go near the accursed place; but I never thought of that. Perhaps monsieur your enemy will take the fever, and perish." "Run, Pierre, run," I cried; "Monsieur Laurentie is in the sacristy, with the strange vicaire. Tell him I must speak to him this very moment. There is no time to be lost." I dragged myself to the seat under the sycamore-tree, and hid my face in my hands, while shudder after shudder quivered through me. I seemed to be watching him again, as he strode weariedly down the street, leaning, with bent shoulders, on his stick, and turned away from every door at which he asked for rest and shelter for the night. Oh! that the time could but come back again, that I might send Jean to find some safe place for him where he could sleep! Back to my memory rushed the old days, when he screened me from the unkindness of my step-mother, and when he seemed to love me. For the sake of those times, would to God the evening that was gone, and the sultry, breathless night, could only come back again! CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH. SUSPENSE. I felt as if I had passed through an immeasurable spell, both of memory and anguish, before Monsieur Laurentie came to me, though he had responded to my summons immediately. I told him, in hurried, broken sentences, what Pierre had confessed to me. His face grew overcast and troubled; yet he did not utter a word of his apprehensions to me. "Madame," he said, "permit me to take my breakfast first; then I will seek Monsieur Foster without delay. I will carry with me some food for him. We will arrange this affair before I return; Jean shall bring the _char à bancs_ to the factory, and take him back to Noireau." "But the fever, monsieur? Can he pass a night there without taking it?" "He is in the hands of his Creator," he answered; "we can know nothing till I have seen him. We cannot call back the past." "Ought I not to go with you?" I asked. "Wherefore, my child?" "He is my husband," I said, falteringly; "if he is ill, I will nurse him." "Good! my poor child," he replied, "leave all this affair to me; leave even thy duty to me. I will take care there shall be no failure in it, on thy part."