"Poor dear creature," answered Samuel, "you are, then, an orphan?"
"Alas, yes, good sir! My dear dead father used to be holy water dispenser at the Church of St. Medard. My dear dead mother used to rent out chairs in the same parish. They are now both with the angels; they are walking with the blessed saints."
"And where do you live, my poor child?"
"With Monsieur the Abbot Morlet, my good lady; a holy man of God, and my kind god-father."
"But how did it happen, my child, that you went astray at this late hour of the night?" asked Samuel. "You must have left home all alone?"
"Just after benediction," answered little Rodin, crossing himself devoutly, "Monsieur the Abbot, my good god-father, took me to walk with him in the Place Royale. There were a lot of people gathered around some mountebanks. I sinned!" cried the boy, beating his chest in contrition, "the Lord God punished me. It is my fault—my fault—my very great fault! Will God ever forgive me my sin?"
"But what great sin did you commit?" questioned Bathsheba.
"Mountebanks are heretics, fallen, and destined for hell," answered little Rodin, pressing his lips together with a wicked air, and striking his breast again. "I sinned, hideously sinned, in watching the games of those reprobates. The Lord God punished me by separating me from my good god-father. The swaying of the crowd carried him away from me. No use to look for him! No use to call him! It was impossible to find him. It was my very great fault!"
"And how did you get here from the Place Royale? The two points are far apart."
"Having said my prayers, both mental and oral, several times, in order to call to my aid the divine pity," replied Rodin emphatically and with an air of beatitude, "I started out to find my way home, away down at the end of the Roule suburb, near the Folie-Beaujon."