"The poor little fellow has lost his way," said the lookout, passing the boy in to Samuel. "I found him sitting down there by the buttress of the gate, sobbing. You would better keep him with you for the night, and to-morrow, in the daylight, he can be taken back to his folks--if you can find out from him where he lives." Touched by the child's grief, Samuel took him into the lower room and both he and Bathsheba bent all their energies toward quieting him. The boy seemed to be about nine or ten years old. He was poorly clad, and of a wan and ailing appearance. His face presented none of the smiling prettiness usual with children of his age. His peaked features, his sickly and cadaverous pallor, his thin, pale lips, his sly and shifty, yet keen and observing glance--revealing a precocious cleverness--in fine, something low, mean and crafty in the look of the boy would, no doubt, have inspired aversion rather than sympathy in the breasts of the couple were it not for the cruel desertion of which he seemed the victim. Hardly had he entered the room when he dropped to his knees, crossed himself, and clasping his hands exclaimed through his tears: "Blessed be You, Lord God, for having pitied Your little servant and led him to this good sir and this good lady. Save them a place in Your paradise!" Dragging himself on his knees toward the Jew and his wife, the urchin kissed their hands effusively and with far too great a flood of gratitude for sincerity. Bathsheba took him on her knees, and said to him as she wiped his tear-stained face, "Don't cry, poor little one. We'll take care of you to-night, and to-morrow we'll take you home. But where do you live, and what is your name?" "My name is Claude Rodin," answered the child; and he added, with a monstrous sigh, "The good God has been merciful to my parents, and took them to His holy paradise." "Poor dear creature," answered Samuel, "you are, then, an orphan?" "Alas, yes, good sir! My dear dead father used to be holy water dispenser at the Church of St. Medard. My dear dead mother used to rent out chairs in the same parish. They are now both with the angels; they are walking with the blessed saints." "And where do you live, my poor child?" "With Monsieur the Abbot Morlet, my good lady; a holy man of God, and my kind god-father." "But how did it happen, my child, that you went astray at this late hour of the night?" asked Samuel. "You must have left home all alone?" "Just after benediction," answered little Rodin, crossing himself devoutly, "Monsieur the Abbot, my good god-father, took me to walk with him in the Place Royale. There were a lot of people gathered around some mountebanks. I sinned!" cried the boy, beating his chest in contrition, "the Lord God punished me. It is my fault--my fault--my very great fault! Will God ever forgive me my sin?" "But what great sin did you commit?" questioned Bathsheba.