inks that it thinks, you will continue to live with the
life which you have stolen from her, as useless as a candle in broad
daylight? Come, have a little pity, Gringoire; be generous in your turn;
it was she who set the example."

The priest was vehement. Gringoire listened to him at first with an
undecided air, then he became touched, and wound up with a grimace which
made his pallid face resemble that of a new-born infant with an attack
of the colic.

"You are pathetic!" said he, wiping away a tear. "Well! I will think
about it. That's a queer idea of yours.--After all," he continued after
a pause, "who knows? perhaps they will not hang me. He who becomes
betrothed does not always marry. When they find me in that little
lodging so grotesquely muffled in petticoat and coif, perchance they
will burst with laughter. And then, if they do hang me,--well! the
halter is as good a death as any. 'Tis a death worthy of a sage who has
wavered all his life; a death which is neither flesh nor fish, like the
mind of a veritable sceptic; a death all stamped with Pyrrhonism and
hesitation, which holds the middle station betwixt heaven and earth,
which leaves you in suspense. 'Tis a philosopher's death, and I was
destined thereto, perchance. It is magnificent to die as one has lived."

The priest interrupted him: "Is it agreed."

"What is death, after all?" pursued Gringoire with exaltation. "A
disagreeable moment, a toll-gate, the passage of little to nothingness.
Some one having asked Cercidas, the Megalopolitan, if he were willing to
die: 'Why not?' he replied; 'for after my death I shall see those great
men, Pythagoras among the philosophers, Hecataeus among historians,
Homer among poets, Olympus among musicians.'"

The archdeacon gave him his hand: "It is settled, then? You will come
to-morrow?"

This gesture recalled Gringoire to reality.

"Ah! i' faith no!" he said in the tone of a man just waking up. "Be
hanged! 'tis too absurd. I will not."

"Farewell, then!" and the archdeacon added between his teeth: "I'll find
you again!"

"I do not want that devil of a man to find me," thought Gringoire; and
he ran after Dom Claude. "Stay, monsieur the archdeacon, no ill-feeling
between old friends! You take an interest in that girl, my wife, I mean,
and 'tis well. You have devised a scheme to get her out of Notre-Dame,
but your way is extremely disagreeable to me, Gringoire. If I had only
another one myself! I beg to say that