into it with
a hollow laugh. As he did so a soldier raised a heavy stick to throw
at him; but the girl caught him by the arms, and said, with a hoarse
pathos, "My God, no, Alphonse! It is my brother!"

Here Mathilde, still holding out the cross, said in a loud whisper,
"'Sh, 'sh! My children, go not to the palace, for there is Francois
Bigot, and he has a devil. But if you have no cottage, I will give you
a home. I know the way to it up in the hills. Poor children, see, I will
make you happy."

She took a dozen little wooden crosses from her girdle, and, stepping
round the circle, gave each person one. No man refused, save a young
militiaman; and when, with a sneering laugh, he threw his into the fire,
she stooped over him and said, "Poor boy! poor boy!"

She put her fingers on her lips, and whispered, "Beati
immaculati--miserere mei, Deus," stray phrases gathered from the
liturgy, pregnant to her brain, order and truth flashing out of
wandering and fantasy. No one of the girls refused, but sat there,
some laughing nervously, some silent; for this mad maid had come to
be surrounded with a superstitious reverence in the eyes of the common
people. It was said she had a home in the hills somewhere, to which she
disappeared for days and weeks, and came back hung about the girdle with
crosses; and it was also said that her red robe never became frayed,
shabby, or disordered.

Suddenly she turned and left them. I let her pass, unchecked, and went
on towards the cathedral, humming an old French chanson. I did this
because now and then I met soldiers and patrols, and my free and
careless manner disarmed notice. Once or twice drunken soldiers stopped
me and threw their arms about me, saluting me on the cheeks a la mode,
asking themselves to drink with me. Getting free of them, I came on my
way, and was glad to reach the cathedral unchallenged. Here and there a
broken buttress or a splintered wall told where our guns had played
upon it, but inside I could hear an organ playing and a Miserere being
chanted. I went round to its rear, and there I saw the little house
described by the sentinel at the chateau. Coming to the door, I knocked,
and it was opened at once by a warm-faced, woman of thirty or so,
who instantly brightened on seeing me. "Ah, you come from Cap Rouge,
m'sieu'," she said, looking at my clothes--her own husband's, though she
knew it not.

"I come from Jean," said I, and stepped inside.

She shut the door, a