and hateful quarrel
had set the mill, where Gregoire reigned supreme, against the farm which
was managed by Gervais and Claire. And Ambroise, on being selected
as arbiter, had fanned the flames by judging the affair in a purely
business way from his Paris counting-house, without taking into account
the various passions which were kindled.

It was on returning from a secret application to Ambroise, prompted by a
maternal longing for peace, that Marianne had taken to her bed, wounded
to the heart, and terrified by the thought of the future. Ambroise had
received her roughly, almost brutally, and she had gone back home in a
state of intense anguish, feeling as if her own flesh were lacerated
by the quarrelling of her ungrateful sons. And she had kept her bed,
begging Mathieu to say nothing, and explaining that a doctor's services
would be useless, since she did not suffer from any malady. She was
fading away, however, as he could well detect; she was day by day taking
leave of him, carried off by her bitter grief. Was it possible that all
those loving and well-loved children, who had grown up under their care
and their caresses, who had become the joy and pride of their victory,
all those children born of their love, united in their fidelity, a
sacred brotherly, sisterly battalion gathered close around them, was it
possible that they should now disband and desperately seek to destroy
one another? If so, it was true, then, that the more a family increases,
the greater is the harvest of ingratitude. And still more accurate
became the saying, that to judge of any human being's happiness or
unhappiness in life, one must wait until he be dead.

"Ah!" said Mathieu, as he sat near Marianne's bed, holding her feverish
hand, "to think of it! To have struggled so much, and to have triumphed
so much, and then to encounter this supreme grief, which will bring
us more pain than all the others. Decidedly it is true that one must
continue battling until one's last breath, and that happiness is only
to be won by suffering and tears. We must still hope, still triumph, and
conquer and live."

Marianne, however, had lost all courage, and seemed to be overwhelmed.

"No," said she, "I have no energy left me, I am vanquished. I was always
able to heal the wounds which came from without, but this wound comes
from my own blood; my blood pours forth within me and stifles me. All
our work is destroyed. Our joy, our health, our strength, have at