spoke, and tried to answer truly. 'It appears you have a taste
for feeling good,' said the Doctor. 'Now, there you puzzle me extremely;
for I thought you said you were a thief; and the two are incompatible.'

'Is it very bad to steal?' asked Jean-Marie.

'Such is the general opinion, little boy,' replied the Doctor.

'No; but I mean as I stole,' explained the other. 'For I had no choice.
I think it is surely right to have bread; it must be right to have bread,
there comes so plain a want of it. And then they beat me cruelly if I
returned with nothing,' he added. 'I was not ignorant of right and
wrong; for before that I had been well taught by a priest, who was very
kind to me.' (The Doctor made a horrible grimace at the word 'priest.')
'But it seemed to me, when one had nothing to eat and was beaten, it was
a different affair. I would not have stolen for tartlets, I believe; but
any one would steal for baker's bread.'

'And so I suppose,' said the Doctor, with a rising sneer, 'you prayed God
to forgive you, and explained the case to Him at length.'

'Why, sir?' asked Jean-Marie. 'I do not see.'

'Your priest would see, however,' retorted Desprez.

'Would he?' asked the boy, troubled for the first time. 'I should have
thought God would have known.'

'Eh?' snarled the Doctor.

'I should have thought God would have understood me,' replied the other.
'You do not, I see; but then it was God that made me think so, was it
not?'

'Little boy, little boy,' said Dr. Desprez, 'I told you already you had
the vices of philosophy; if you display the virtues also, I must go. I
am a student of the blessed laws of health, an observer of plain and
temperate nature in her common walks; and I cannot preserve my equanimity
in presence of a monster. Do you understand?'

'No, sir,' said the boy.

'I will make my meaning clear to you,' replied the doctor. 'Look there
at the sky--behind the belfry first, where it is so light, and then up
and up, turning your chin back, right to the top of the dome, where it is
already as blue as at noon. Is not that a beautiful colour? Does it not
please the heart? We have seen it all our lives, until it has grown in
with our familiar thoughts. Now,' changing his tone, 'suppose that sky
to become suddenly of a live and fiery amber, like the colour of clear
coals, and growing scarlet towards the top--I do not say it would be any
the less beautiful; but would you like it as well?'