"We have another two thousand in the bank," said Maximilian Cour.
"But it will take years," said the saddler disconsolately.
Charley looked at the Cure, mournful and broken but calm. He saw the Seigneur, gloomy and silent, standing apart. He saw the people in scattered groups, looking more homeless than if they had no homes. Some groups were silent; others discussed angrily the question, who was the incendiary—that it had been set on fire seemed certain.
"I said no good would come of the play-acting," said the Seigneur's groom, and was flung into the ditch by Filion Lacasse.
Presently Charley staggered to his feet, purpose in his face. These people, from the Cure and Seigneur to the most ignorant habitant, were hopeless and inert. The pride of their lives was gone.
"Gather the people together," he said to the Notary and Filion Lacasse.
Then he turned to the Cure and the Seigneur.
"With your permission, messieurs," he said, "I will do a harder thing than I have ever done. I will speak to them all."
Wondering, M. Loisel added his voice to the Notary's, and the word went round. Slowly they all made their way to a spot the Cure indicated.
Charley stood on the embankment above the road, the notables of the parish round him.
Rosalie had been taken to the Cure's house. In that wild moment in the church when she had fallen insensible in Charley's arms, a new feeling had sprung up in her. She loved him in every fibre, but she had a strange instinct, a prescience, that she was lying on his breast for the last time. She had wound her arms round his neck, and, as his lips closed on hers, she had cried: "We shall die together—together."