sed me."

"And in whose name did it speak, this voice, more vague than mysterious?"

"In the name of my conscience, evidently."

"'Evidently' is too much, and you would be puzzled if called upon to
demonstrate this evidence; whereas, nothing is more uncertain and elusive
than the thing that is called conscience, which is in reality only an
affair of environment and of education."

"I do not understand."

"Does your conscience tell you it is a crime to love me?"

"No, decidedly."

"You see, then, that you have a personal way of understanding what is
good and bad, which is not that of our country, where it is admitted,
from the religious and from the social point of view, that a young girl
is guilty when she has a lover. Of course, you see, also, that conscience
is a bad weighing-machine, since each one, in order to make it work, uses
a weight that he has himself manufactured."

"However it is, you did right not to strangle Cafflie."

"Whom you, yourself, have condemned to death."

"By the hand of justice, whether human or divine; but not by yours, any
more than by Florentin's or mine, although we know better than any one
that he does not deserve any mercy."

"And you see I foresaw your objections, as I did not tighten his cravat."

"Happily."

"Is it necessary to say 'happily'?"

CHAPTER X

SANIEL MAKES A RESOLUTION

This evening Phillis was obliged to be at home early, but she cleared off
the table, and put everything in order before leaving.

"You can breakfast on the remains of the chicken," she said, as she put
it in the pantry.

And as Saniel accompanied her with a candle in his hand, he saw that she
had thought not only of his breakfast for the following day, but for many
days, besides carrots for the rabbits.

"What a good heart you have!" he said.

"Because I think of the rabbits?"

"Because of your tenderness and thoughtfulness."

"I wish I could do something for you!"

As soon as she was gone he seated himself at his desk and began to work,
anxious to make up for the time that he had given to sentiment. The fact
that his work might not be of use to him, and that his experiments might
be rudely interrupted the next morning or in a few days, was not a
sufficient reason for being idle. He had work to do, and he worked as if
with the certitude that he would pass his examinations, and that his
experiments of four years past would have a good ending, without
interference from any o