"Yes."
"Well?"
The traveller continued, with some hesitation, "I do not know why, but he refused to take me in."
"Have you been to what is his name, in the Rue de Chauffaut?"
The stranger's embarrassment increased; he stammered, "He would not take me in either."
The peasant's face assumed a suspicious look, he surveyed the new comer from head to foot, and all at once exclaimed with a sort of shudder,—
"Can you be the man?..."
He took another look at the stranger, placed the lamp on the table, and took down his gun. On hearing the peasant say "Can you be the man?" his wife had risen, taken her two children in her arms, and hurriedly sought refuge behind her husband, and looked in horror at the stranger as she muttered, "The villain!" All this took place in less time than is needed to imagine it. After examining the man for some minutes as if he had been a viper, the peasant returned to the door and said: "Be off!"
"For mercy's sake," the man continued,—"a glass of water."
"A charge of shot!" the peasant said.