ere is still, in some old churches, at the
end of the choir, half-way up the crypt, a stone cell where lepers were
admitted to hear mass, showing their dark profiles to the curious and
fearful crowd, like wild beasts crouched against the loopholes in the
wall. Francoise well remembered having seen in the village where she had
been brought up the leper, the bugbear of her infancy, hearing mass from
his stone cage, lost in the shade and in isolation. Now, seeing her son
seated, his head in his hands, alone, up there away from the others,
this memory came to her mind. "One might think it was a leper," murmured
the peasant. And, in fact, this poor Nabob was a leper, his millions
from the East weighing on him like some terrible and mysterious disease.
It happened that the bench on which he had chosen to sit had several
recent vacancies on account of holidays or deaths; so that while the
other deputies were talking to each other, laughing, making signs,
he sat silent, alone, the object of attention to all the Chamber; an
attention which his mother felt to be malevolent, ironic, which burned
into her heart. How was she to let him know that she was there, near
him, that one faithful heart beat not far from his? He would not turn to
the gallery. One would have said that he felt it hostile, that he feared
to look there. Suddenly, at the sound of the bell from the presidential
platform, a rustle ran through the assembly, every head leaned forward
with that fixed attention which makes the features unmovable, and a thin
man in spectacles, whose sudden rise among so many seated figures gave
him the authority of attitude at once, said, opening the paper he held
in his hand:

"Gentlemen, in the name of your third committee, I beg to move that
the election of the second division of the department of Corsica be
annulled."

In the deep silence following this phrase, which Mme. Jansoulet did not
understand, the giant seated before her began to puff vigorously, and
all at once, in the front row of the gallery, a lovely face turned round
to address him a rapid sign of intelligence and approval. Forehead pale,
lips thin, eyebrows too black for the white framing of her hat, it all
produced in the eyes of the good old lady, without her knowing why, the
effect of the first flash of lightning in a storm and the apprehension
of the thunderbolt following the lightning.

Le Merquier was reading his report. The slow, dull monotonous voice,
the dra