Tears had come to Luc's eyes also. To think that so much misery, such a frightful destiny of privation and suffering, should fall upon such weak yet courageous creatures! He quickly descended to the Mionne, dipped his handkerchief in the water, and came back and applied it to Josine's temples. Fortunately that tragic night was not a very cold one. At last he took hold of the young woman's hands, rubbed them, and warmed them with his own; and finally she sighed and seemed to awaken from some black dream. But in her prostrate condition, due to lack of food, nothing astonished her; it appeared to her quite natural that her brother should be there with that loaf, accompanied too by that tall and handsome gentleman, whom she recognised. Perhaps she imagined that it was the gentleman who had brought the bread. Her poor weak fingers could not break the crust. He had to help her break the bread into little pieces, which he passed her slowly, one by one, so that she might not choke herself in her haste to quiet the atrocious hunger which griped her. And then the whole of her poor, thin, spare figure began to tremble, and she wept, wept on unceasingly whilst still eating, thus moistening each mouthful with her tears ere she devoured it voraciously, evincing the while the shivering clumsiness of some eager beaten animal which no longer knows how to swallow. Luc, distracted, with a pang at his heart, gently restrained her hands whilst still giving her the little pieces which he broke off the loaf. Never could he afterwards forget that communion of suffering and kindliness, that bread of life thus given to the most woeful and sweetest of human creatures. Nanet, meantime, broke off his own share, and ate like a little glutton, proud of his exploit. His sister's tears astonished him--why did she still weep when they were feasting? Then, having finished, quite oppressed by his ravenous feast, he nestled close beside her and was overpowered by sudden somnolence, the happy sleep of childhood, which beholds the angels in its dreams. And Josine pressed him to her with her right arm, leaning back against the bench and feeling a trifle stronger, whilst Luc remained seated by her side, unable to leave her like that alone in the night with that sleeping child. He had understood at last that some of the clumsiness that she had shown in eating had been due to her injured hand, around which, as well as she could manage, she had again wound her bloodstained bandage. 'You have injured yourself?' he said. 'Yes, monsieur, a boot-stitching machine broke one of my fingers and I had to have it cut off. But it was my fault, so the foreman said, though Monsieur Gourier gave me fifty francs.' She spoke in a somewhat low and very gentle voice, which trembled at moments as with a kind of shame. 'So you worked at the boot-factory belonging to Monsieur Gourier, the Mayor?'