chair. He wrinkled his eyelids around central points of fire.

"What is a loup-garou?"

"Does monsieur not know? Monsieur Sainte-Hélène surely knows that a
loup-garou is a man-wolf."

"A man-wolf," mused the soldier. "But when a person is so afflicted,
is he a man or is he a wolf?"

"It is not an affliction, monsieur; it is sorcery."

"I think you are right. Then the wretched man-wolf is past being
prayed for?"

"If one should repent"--

"I don't repent anything," returned Sainte-Hélène; and Gaspard's jaw
relaxed, and he had the feeling of pin-feathers in his hair. "Is he a
man or is he a wolf?" repeated the questioner.

"The loup-garou is a man, but he takes the form of a wolf."

"Not all the time?"

"No, monsieur, not all the time?"

"Of course not."

Gaspard experienced with us all this paradox: that the older we grow,