ng him promise that
the threshing-machine should be ready before the end of that same week.

"You must take a cup of tea, my dear," she exclaimed. "It would do you
good; you worry your mind too much."

Maurice accepted the offer, and gayly replied: "Oh! do you know, an
omnibus almost crushed me just now in the Rue de Rivoli!"

At this his mother turned livid, and the cup which she held escaped from
her hand. Ah! God, was her happiness at the mercy of an accident? Then
once again the fearful threat sped by, that icy gust which came she knew
not whence, but which ever chilled her to her bones.

"Why, you stupid," said Beauchene, laughing, "it was he who crushed the
omnibus, since here he is, telling you the tale. Ah! my poor Maurice,
your mother is really ridiculous. I know how strong you are, and I'm
quite at ease about you."

That day Madame Angelin returned to Janville with Mathieu. They found
themselves alone in the railway carriage, and all at once, without any
apparent cause, tears started from the young woman's eyes. At this she
apologized, and murmured as if in a dream: "To have a child, to rear
him, and then lose him--ah! certainly one's grief must then be poignant.
Yet one has had him with one; he has grown up, and one has known for
years all the joy of having him at one's side. But when one never has a
child--never, never--ah! come rather suffering and mourning than such a
void as that!"

And meantime, at Chantebled, Mathieu and Marianne founded, created,
increased, and multiplied, again proving victorious in the eternal
battle which life wages against death, thanks to that continual increase
both of offspring and of fertile land, which was like their very
existence, their joy and their strength. Desire passed like a gust of
flame, desire divine and fruitful, since they possessed the power of
love, of kindliness, and health. And their energy did the rest--that
will of action, that quiet bravery in the presence of the labor that
is necessary, the labor that has made and that regulates the world. Yet
even during those two years it was not without constant struggling that
they achieved victory. True, victory was becoming more and more
certain as the estate expanded. The petty worries of earlier days had
disappeared, and the chief question was now one of ruling sensibly and
equitably. All the land had been purchased northward on the plateau,
from the farm of Mareuil to the farm of Lillebonne; there was not a