In the evening, after dinner, Monsieur Roger, to whom Paul recalled his promise, asked Miette to go and find him a pebble in the pathway before the château. When he had the bit of stone in his hand, Monsieur Roger let it fall from the height of about three feet.
"As you have just heard and seen," said he, addressing Paul, "this stone in falling from a small height produces only a feeble shock, but if it falls from the height of the house upon the flagstones of the pavement, the shock would be violent enough to break it."
Monsieur Roger interrupted himself, and put this question to Paul:
"Possibly you may have asked yourself why this stone should fall. Why do bodies fall?"
"Goodness knows," said the small voice of Miss Miette in the midst of the silence that followed.
"Miette," said Madame Dalize, "be serious, and don't answer for others."
"But, mamma, I am sure that Paul would have answered the same as I did:—would you not, Paul?"
Paul bent his head slightly as a sign that Miette was not mistaken.
"Well," continued Monsieur Roger, "another one before you did ask himself this question. It was a young man of twenty-three years, named Newton. He found himself one fine evening in a garden, sitting under an apple-tree, when an apple fell at his feet. This common fact, whose cause had never awakened the attention of anybody, filled all his thoughts; and, as the moon was shining in the heavens, Newton asked himself why the moon did not fall like the apple."