gedly, and in silence, with a weary-looking face, until
his task was ended, and the waggon driven off by the owner, who had
employed him at a lower rate than his comrades. Then he would throw his
blue blouse over his shoulders, and tramp away with heavy tread along
the faintly marked trail leading across the beach to Mont St. Michel.

Neither was there any voice to greet him as he gained the gateway, where
the men of the Mont congregated, as they always congregate about the
entrance to a walled town. Rather, the scornful silence which had
surrounded him at his work was here deepened into a personal hatred.
Within the gate the women, who were chattering over their nets of
cockles, shrank away from him, or broke into a contemptuous laugh. Along
the narrow street the children fled at the sight of him, and hid behind
their mothers, from whose protection they could shout after him. If the
cure met him, he would turn aside into the first house rather than come
in contact with him. He was under a ban which no one dared to defy.

The only voice that spoke to him was the fretful, querulous voice of
an old, bedridden woman as he lifted the latch and opened the door of a
poor house upon the ramparts, which had no entrance into the street;
and where he lived alone with his mother, cut off from all accidental
intercourse with his neighbours.

"Michel! Michel! how late thou art!" she exclaimed; "if thou hadst been
a good son thou wouldst have returned before the hour it is."

"I returned as soon as my work was finished," he answered, in a patient
voice; "I have not lost a minute by the way."

"Bah! because no one will ask thee to turn in with them anywhere!" she
continued. "If thou wert like everybody else thou wouldst have many a
friend to pass thy time with. It is hard for me, thy mother, to have
brought thee into the world that all the world should despise and hate
thee, as they do this day. Monsieur le Cure says there is no hope for
thee if thou art so obstinate; thou must go to hell, though I named
thee after our great archangel St. Michel, and brought thee up as a good
Christian. _Quel malheur!_ How hard it is for me to lie in bed all day,
and think of my son in the flames of hell!"

Very quietly, as if he had heard such complainings hundreds of times
before, did Michel set about kindling a few sticks upon the open hearth.
This was so common a welcome home that he scarcely heard it, and had
ceased to heed it. The room, as