the flickering light fell upon it,
was one of the cheerless and comfortless chambers to be seen in any
peasant's house: a pile of wood in one corner, a single table with a
chair or two, a shelf with a few pieces of brown crockery, and the
bed on which the paralytic woman was lying, her hands crossed over
her breast, and her bright black eyes glistening in the gloom. Michel
brought her the soup he had made, and fed her carefully and tenderly,
before thinking of satisfying his own hunger.

"It is of no good, Michel," she said, when he laid her down again upon
the pillow he had made smooth for her; "it is of no good. Thou mayest
as well leave me to perish; it will not weigh for thee. Monsieur le Cure
says if thou hadst been born a heretic perhaps the good God might
have taken it into account. But thou wert born a Christian, as good a
Christian as all the world, and thou hast sold thy birthright to the
devil. Leave me then, and take thy pleasure in this life, for thou wilt
have nothing but misery in the next."

"I will not leave thee--never!" he answered, briefly. "I have no fear of
the next world."

He was a man of few words evidently. Perhaps the silence maintained
around him had partly frozen his power of speech. Even to his mother he
spoke but little, though her complaining went on without ceasing, until
he extinguished both fire and lamp, and climbed the rude ladder into the
loft overhead, where her voice never failed to rouse him from his sleep,
if she only called "Michel!" He could not clearly explain his position
even to himself. He had gone to Paris many years before, where he came
across some Protestants, who had taught him to read the Testament, and
instructed him in their religion. The new faith had taken hold of him,
and thrust deep roots into his simple and constant nature; though he
had no words at command to express the change to others, and scarcely to
himself. So long as he had been in Paris there had been no need of this.

But now his father's death had compelled him to return to his native
place, and to the little knot of people who knew him as old Pierre
Lorio's son, a fisherman like themselves, with no more right to read or
think than they had. The fierceness of the persecution he encountered
filled him with dismay, though it had not shaken his fidelity to his
new faith. But often a dumb, inarticulate longing possessed him to make
known to his old neighbours the reason of the change in him, but spee