The curé, who had been engaged in prayer, rose.
"Fly!" he exclaimed.
"My place is here!" replied Philip.
Antoinette gave him a look of approval.
"In the name of the Father, who has commanded you to love, I order you to fly!"
And, as he spoke, the priest pointed to the door.
"But who will give him burial?" exclaimed Philip.
"I will; go!" replied the abbé.
Antoinette and Philip were compelled to obey.
The priest was left alone with the lifeless body of M. de Chamondrin. He knelt, and, as calmly as if he were in his own presbytery, recited the prayers the church addresses to Heaven for the souls of the dead. The flickering light of a nearly consumed candle dimly illumined the room. The world without was bathed in a flood of clear moonlight. The marauders ran about the park, shouting at the top of their voices, uprooting plants and shrubbery, breaking the statuary and the marble vases, and expending upon inanimate objects the fury they were unable to vent upon the living.