ted for this hour!" said Brother Jacques. All the
years of suffering returned and spread their venom through his veins.
"I have starved. I have begged. I have been beaten. I have slept in
fields and have been bitten by dogs. I have seen you feasting at your
table while I hungered outside. I have watched your coach as it rolled
through the chateau gates. One day your postilion struck me with his
whip because I did not get out of the way soon enough. I have crept
into sheds and shared the straw with beasts which had more pity than
you. I thought of you, Monsieur le Marquis, you in your chateau with
plenty to eat and drink, and a fire toasting your noble shins. Have I
not thought of you?"

"I am an old man," said the marquis, bewildered. This priest must be a
nightmare, another of those phantoms which were crowding around his bed.

"How I longed for riches, luxury, content! For had I not your blood in
my veins and were not my desires natural? I became a priest because I
could starve no longer without dying. I have seen your true son in the
forests, have called him brother, though he did not understand. You
cursed him and made him an outcast, wilfully. I was starving as a lad
of two. My mother, Margot Bourdaloue, went out in search of bread. I
followed, but became lost. I never saw my mother again; I can not even
remember how she looked. I can only recall the starved eyes. And you
cursed your acknowledged son and applied to him the epithet which I
have borne these twenty years. Unnatural father!"

"Unnatural son," murmured the marquis.

"I have suffered!" Brother Jacques flung his arms above his head as if
to hurl the trembling curse. "No; I shall not curse you. You do not
believe in God. Heaven and hell have no meaning."

"I loved your mother."

"Love? That is a sacred word, Monsieur; you soil it. What was it you
said that night at Rochelle? . . . That for every soul you have sent
out of the world, you have brought another into it? Perhaps this
fellow is my brother, and I know it not; this woman my sister, and I
pass her by."

"I would have provided for you."

To Brother Jacques it seemed that his sword of wrath had been suddenly
twisted from his hand. The sweat stood out on his forehead.

"If you were turned away from my door, it was not my hand that opened
it."

"I asked for nothing but bread," said Brother Jacques, finding his
voice.

"Thirty years ago . . . I have forgotten