'All right,' said he, 'since you won't take me I shall take the little one.'

'What do you mean?'

Charlot, momentarily forgotten, had remained among his mother's skirts, making an effort not to burst out sobbing in the midst of the quarrel. Goliath, who had at last risen from his chair, drew near. 'Eh! you are my little boy, aren't you? A little Prussian, eh? Come, and let me take you away.'

But Silvine, quivering from head to foot, had already caught the child in her arms and was pressing him to her bosom: 'He a Prussian? No, he's French, born in France!'

'French! Why look at him and look at me! He's my very portrait. Is he at all like you?'

It was only then that she really saw that tall fair fellow in front of her, with his curly beard and hair, broad pink face, and big, blue eyes, glistening with the brilliancy of porcelain. And what he said was indeed true—the little one had the same yellow, curly crop of hair, the same fat cheeks, the same light eyes as himself; in a word, all the physical characteristics of the race dwelling over yonder. She herself felt that she was of a different nature, with her heavy locks of raven hair, which, in her disordered state, were slipping from her chignon over her shoulders.

'I brought him into the world; he is mine!' she resumed in a tone of fury; 'he's a French boy who will never know a word of your dirty German; yes, a French boy who will one day go and kill you all to avenge those of ours whom you have killed!'

Still clinging to his mother's neck, Charlot had now begun to cry and call: 'Mammy, mammy, I'm frightened, take me away!'

Thereupon Goliath, who doubtless did not wish to provoke a scandal, drew back and contented himself with declaring in a stern voice: 'Listen carefully to what I'm going to tell you, Silvine. I know everything that goes on here. You receive the Francs-tireurs of the Dieulet Woods, your farm-hand's brother, that fellow Sambuc, a brigand whom you supply with bread! And I know too that the farm-hand, that man Prosper, is a Chasseur d'Afrique, a deserter, who belongs to us; and I am also aware that you are hiding a wounded man, another soldier who on a word from me would be sent to a fortress in Germany. There! you see that I am well informed.'

Silent and terrified, she was attentively listening to him now, whilst Charlot, with his mouth close to her neck, repeated in his faltering, infantile voice: 'Oh! mammy, mammy, take me away, I'm frightened!'