“Hush!” said Jeannet: “the bare thought makes me crazy.”
“I hope not,” replied Michou; “but I would be half wild myself. Come, now, let us be off; we have earned our dinner. M. le Marquis is asking for you.”
“Wait a moment, good, kind Jacques,” said Jean-Louis. “I have not yet thanked you; and yet I know you saved my life.”
“What nonsense!” said Michou, who in his turn looked embarrassed. “In such a battle, do you think a fellow looks after any one's skin but his own?”
“Oh! I saw you,” replied Jeannet. “You sprang before me, or I would have been killed.”
“Listen,” said Michou in a solemn tone, “before God, who hears me, and conducts all by his divine hand, it was not so much your life that I wished to save, ... it was another's that I wished to take.”
“How?”
“We should not love revenge,” replied the game-keeper; “but the temptation was too strong; faith! I am ready to confess it, if it was a sin—of which I am not sure. Jeannet, he who aimed at you from the barricade—didn't you recognize him?”
“No,” said Jeannet, “I saw no one.”
“It was Isidore Perdreau. God have mercy on his soul!” said the game-keeper, blessing himself. “My poor Barbette in heaven will ask for my pardon....”