sturdy and smiling. Life had brought forth life; and truth had
burst forth, as dazzling as the sun. He had made his third experiment
with Paris, and this had been conclusive; it had been no wretched
miscarriage with increase of darkness and grief, like his other
experiments at Lourdes and Rome. In the first place, the law of labour
had been revealed to him, and he had imposed upon himself a task, as
humble a one as it was, that manual calling which he was learning so late
in life, but which was, nevertheless, a form of labour, and one in which
he would never fail, one too that would lend him the serenity which comes
from the accomplishment of duty, for life itself was but labour: it was
only by effort that the world existed. And then, moreover, he had loved;
and salvation had come to him from woman and from his child. Ah! what a
long and circuitous journey he had made to reach this finish at once so
natural and so simple! How he had suffered, how much error and anger he
had known before doing what all men ought to do! That eager, glowing love
which had contended against his reason, which had bled at sight of the
arrant absurdities of the miraculous grotto of Lourdes, which had bled
again too in presence of the haughty decline of the Vatican, had at last
found contentment now that he was husband and father, now that he had
confidence in work and believed in the just laws of life. And thence had
come the indisputable truth, the one solution--happiness in certainty.

Whilst Pierre was thus plunged in thought, Bache and Morin had already
gone off with their customary handshakes and promises to come and chat
again some evening. And as Jean was now crying more loudly, Marie took
him in her arms and unhooked her dress-body to give him her breast.

"Oh! the darling, it's his time, you know, and he doesn't forget it!" she
said. "Just look, Pierre, I believe he has got bigger since yesterday."

She laughed; and Pierre, likewise laughing, drew near to kiss the child.
And afterwards he kissed his wife, mastered as he was by emotion at the
sight of that pink, gluttonous little creature imbibing life from that
lovely breast so full of milk.

"Why! he'll eat you," he gaily said to Marie. "How he's pulling!"

"Oh! he does bite me a little," she replied; "but I like that the better,
it shows that he profits by it."

Then Mere-Grand, she who as a rule was so serious and silent, began to
talk with a smile lighting up her face: "I weig