venture to make to the cruel rupture
which had occurred after the young man had thrown off his cassock and
rebelled against the Church. He had since heard of Pierre's marriage, and
was aware that he had for ever severed all religious ties. But at that
supreme moment nothing of this seemed of any account to the old priest.
His knowledge of Pierre's loving heart sufficed him, for all that he now
desired was simply the help of that heart which he had seen glowing with
such passionate charity.

"Well," he resumed, again finding sufficient strength to smile, "it is a
very simple matter. I want to make you my heir. Oh! it isn't a fine
legacy I am leaving you; it is the legacy of my poor, for I have nothing
else to bestow on you; I shall leave nothing behind me but my poor."

Of these unhappy creatures, three in particular quite upset his heart. He
recoiled from the prospect of leaving them without chance of succour,
without even the crumbs which he had hitherto distributed among them, and
which had enabled them to live. One was the big Old'un, the aged
carpenter whom he and Pierre had vainly sought one night with the object
of sending him to the Asylum for the Invalids of Labour. He had been sent
there a little later, but he had fled three days afterwards, unwilling as
he was to submit to the regulations. Wild and violent, he had the most
detestable disposition. Nevertheless, he could not be left to starve. He
came to Abbe Rose's every Saturday, it seemed, and received a franc,
which sufficed him for the whole week. Then, too, there was a bedridden
old woman in a hovel in the Rue du Mont-Cenis. The baker, who every
morning took her the bread she needed, must be paid. And in particular
there was a poor young woman residing on the Place du Tertre, one who was
unmarried but a mother. She was dying of consumption, unable to work, and
tortured by the idea that when she should have gone, her daughter must
sink to the pavement like herself. And in this instance the legacy was
twofold: there was the mother to relieve until her death, which was near
at hand, and then the daughter to provide for until she could be placed
in some good household.

"You must forgive me, my dear child, for leaving you all these worries,"
added Abbe Rose. "I tried to get the good Sister, who is nursing me, to
take an interest in these poor people, but when I spoke to her of the big
Old'un, she was so alarmed that she made the sign of the cross. And it's
t