e are
discovered--"

"Then," the other continued calmly, "you will see."

"In any case we shall be better farther back," Tignonville retorted.
"Here, we are within an ace of being seen from the lane." And he began
to wriggle himself backwards.

The minister laid his hand on him. "Have a care!" he muttered. "And do
not move, but listen. And you will understand. When I reached this
place--it would be about five o'clock this morning--breathless, and
expecting each minute to be dragged forth to make my confession before
men, I despaired as you despair now. Like Elijah under the juniper tree,
I said, 'It is enough, O Lord! Take my soul also, for I am no better
than my fellows!' All the sky was black before my eyes, and my ears were
filled with the wailings of the little ones and the lamentations of
women. 'O Lord, it is enough,' I prayed. 'Take my soul, or, if it be
Thy will, then, as the angel was sent to take the cakes to Elijah, give
me also a sign that I shall live.'"

For a moment he paused, struggling with overpowering emotion. Even his
impatient listener, hitherto incredulous, caught the infection, and in a
tone of awe murmured--

"Yes? And then, M. la Tribe!"

"The sign was given me. The words were scarcely out of my mouth when a
hen flew up, and, scratching a nest in the hay at my feet, presently laid
an egg."

Tignonville stared. "It was timely, I admit," he said. "But it is no
uncommon thing. Probably it has its nest here and lays daily."

"Young man, this is new-mown hay," the minister answered solemnly. "This
cart was brought here no further back than yesterday. It smells of the
meadow, and the flowers hold their colour. No, the fowl was sent. To-
morrow it will return, and the next, and the next, until the plague be
stayed and I go hence. But that is not all. A while later a second hen
appeared, and I thought it would lay in the same nest. But it made a new
one, on the side on which you lie and not far from your foot. Then I
knew that I was to have a companion, and that God had laid also for him a
table in the wilderness."

"It did lay, then?"

"It is still on the nest, beside your foot."

Tignonville was about to reply when the preacher grasped his arm and by a
sign enjoined silence. He did so not a moment too soon. Preoccupied by
the story, narrator and listener had paid no heed to what was passing in
the lane, and the voices of men speaking close at hand took them by