declare I felt for a minute as if I ought to confess my ideas to my
companions and beg their pardon for having wronged them, though only
in mind. "Who knows," I muttered, "what efforts it may have cost them
to answer me with the composure they did? and am I sure that I myself,
under similar circumstances, should have suffered with the same
forbearance the company of a stranger, whose presence must have been
both irksome and galling?"

Once it seemed to me that the two turned to gaze earnestly into each
other's eyes and then to clasp their hands in a quick nervous grasp,
as though each hoped, by so doing, to take from the other a part of
the sorrow they appeared to share in common. Neither spoke, however,
but the mute sympathetic touch was doubtless more eloquent than words.
Once again both stopped, at once and together, as if their minds,
acting in unison and following the same strain, had arrived
simultaneously at a point where rest and relief were needed. The old
man placed his hand upon the boy's shoulder. "Courage, Henri!" he
said, and hastily walked on.

Tears rose to my eyes, but how or why I can scarcely tell, unless it
be indeed that grief is contagious, and that the angel who hovers over
those who mourn cannot bear to see a heart indifferent: yes, tears
started to my eyes, and pity with them. The features of the two
peasants became transformed for me: they were no longer ugly and
uninteresting: how could they be so, brightened by the halo with which
sympathy crowned them?

"Have you far to go, sir?" suddenly asked the old man, breaking in
abruptly upon the course of my reflections.