The baroness stopped, as if her mouth refused to utter the words.

"Go on, mother!"

"You are none the less condemned--"

"Condemned to death; I know that."

"What! you know it, unhappy boy, and you stay here quietly?"

"I tell you, mother, that as long as I am with Courtin I'm quite safe."

"Then he has been kind to you, has he, that man?"

"He has been simply a second providence. He found me wounded and dying of hunger; he brought me home, and since then he has fed and hidden me."

"I must own I have distrusted him."

"Then you are wrong, mother."