"I was waiting for you, M. Pascal. Do you know that I have been able
to bottle two casks of wine without being tired!"

Clotilde remained outside, sitting on a stone bench; while Pascal
entered the room to give Lafouasse the injection. She could hear them
speaking, and the latter, who in spite of his stoutness was very
cowardly in regard to pain, complained that the puncture hurt, adding,
however, that after all a little suffering was a small price to pay
for good health. Then he declared he would be offended if the doctor
did not take a glass of something. The young lady would not affront
him by refusing to take some syrup. He carried a table outside, and
there was nothing for it but they must touch glasses with him.

"To your health, M. Pascal, and to the health of all the poor devils
to whom you give back a relish for their victuals!"

Clotilde thought with a smile of the gossip of which Martine had
spoken to her, of Father Boutin, whom they accused the doctor of
having killed. He did not kill all his patients, then; his remedy
worked real miracles, since he brought back to life the consumptive
and the ataxic. And her faith in her master returned with the warm
affection for him which welled up in her heart. When they left
Lafouasse, she was once more completely his; he could do what he
willed with her.

But a few moments before, sitting on the stone bench looking at the
steam mill, a confused story had recurred to her mind; was it not here
in these smoke-blackened buildings, to-day white with flour, that a
drama of love had once been enacted? And the story came back to her;
details given by Martine; allusions made by the doctor himself; the