"How sublimely innocent you are! I will tell you. Did you not awake at the first noise in the night, guess that the tumult was a tempest about to break on the royal residence and run to arouse General Lafayette, for the general was sleeping."
"That was natural enough; he had been riding about for twelve hours; he had not been abed for four-and-twenty."
"You led him to the palace," continued Gilbert; "you led him into the thick of the scoundrels, crying: "Back, villains, the revenger is upon ye!" "
"That's right enough; I did that."
"Well, Billet, my friend, you see that you have great compensation; though you could not prevent this young gentleman from being butchered, you did perhaps stay the great crime of the slaughter of the royal family. Ingrate, would you leave your country's service just when such a mighty reward was yours?"
"But who would know anything about it when I never suspected it myself?"
"You and I, Billet; is not that enough?"
The farmer meditated for a while before he said as he held out his hand to the physician:
"I guess you are right, doctor. But, you know, man is a weak, selfish, unsteady creature; you are the only one who is just the other style. What made you so?"
"Misfortune," replied the other, with a smile filled with more grief than a sob.