ith his memories those burial planks, could
not bear up against this strange reminder. His strength gave way; he
was not able to lift the lead, and the plumber, seeing this, came with
him, and offered to accompany him to the house and solder the last
sheet when the body had been laid in the coffin.

The Breton burned the plane and all the tools he had used. Then he
settled his accounts with Frappier and bade him farewell. The heroism
with which the poor lad personally performed, like the grandmother,
the last offices for Pierrette made him a sharer in the awful scene
which crowned the tyranny of the Rogrons.

Brigaut and the plumber reached the house of Monsieur Auffray just in
time to decide by their own main force an infamous and shocking
judicial question. The room where the dead girl lay was full of
people, and presented to the eyes of the two men a singular sight. The
Rogron emissaries were standing beside the body of their victim, to
torture her even after death. The corpse of the child, solemn in its
beauty, lay on the cot-bed of her grandmother. Pierrette's eyes were
closed, the brown hair smoothed upon her brow, the body swathed in a
coarse cotton sheet.

Before the bed, on her knees, her hair in disorder, her hands
stretched out, her face on fire, the old Lorrain was crying out, "No,
no, it shall not be done!"

At the foot of the bed stood Monsieur Auffray and the two priests. The
tapers were still burning.

Opposite to the grandmother was the surgeon of the hospital, with an
assistant, and near him stood Doctor Neraud and Vinet. The surgeon
wore his dissecting apron; the assistant had opened a case of
instruments and was handing him a knife.

This scene was interrupted by the noise of the coffin which Brigaut
and the plumber set down upon the floor. Then Brigaut, advancing, was
horrified at the sight of Madame Lorrain, who was now weeping.

"What is the matter?" he asked, standing beside her and grasping the
chisel convulsively in his hand.

"This," said the old woman, "_this_, Brigaut: they want to open the
body of my child and cut into her head, and stab her heart after her
death as they did when she was living."

"Who?" said Brigaut, in a voice that might have deafened the men of
law.

"The Rogrons."

"In the sacred name of God!--"

"Stop, Brigaut," said Monsieur Auffray, seeing the lad brandish his
chisel.

"Monsieur Auffray," said Brigaut, as white as his dead companion, "I
hear you be