“Would you like to touch the relics, demoisellette?”
Forcing their way before her, without great effort, but pitilessly, through the crowd of cripples, they cleared a passage for her. Livette walked quickly, she drew near the spot, and Renaud, seizing her around the waist, lifted her up like a child so that she touched the consecrated relics first of all!
Still with the three youths as a body-guard, before whom all were fain to stand aside, and without further thought—poor you! it is the law of the world—of the innumerable, nameless perils by which she was encompassed, she left the church content. Peace had found its way into her heart once more. Her Renaud was there by her side. Was all that she had dreaded a dream and nothing more?
“Ah! it is good to be outside!” he said, filling his lungs with the fresh air.
“Yes, but when will you light the tapers, Renaud, that you are to burn in the church as I promised for you?”
“Oh! I have a whole day before me,” he replied. “Now let us go to the races.”
XIX
THE BRANDING
The relics having descended, the majority of those present left the dark church and returned to the dazzling outside world.