the avalanche that snaps the pine trees; and the wind is the spirit that
calls down the great snow-slips."

"But how may Madame who sees nothing; know then a spirit to be abroad?"

"My faith; one may know one's foot is on the wild mint without shifting
one's sole to look."

"Madame will pardon me. No doubt also one may know a spirit by the smell
of sulphur?"

"Monsieur is a sceptic. It comes with the knowledge of cities. There
are even such in little Bel-Oiseau, since the evil time when they took
to engrossing the contracts of good citizens on the skins of the poor
jew-beards that give us flesh and milk. It is horrible as the Tannery of
Meudon. In my young days, Monsieur, such agreements were inscribed upon
wood."

"Quite so, Madame, and entirely to the point. Also one may see from whom
Camille inherited his wandering propensities. But for his fall--it was
always unaccountable?"

"Monsieur, as one trips on the edge of a crevasse and disappears. His
soul dropped into the frozen cleft that one cannot fathom."

"Madame will forgive my curiosity."

"But surely. There was no dark secret in my Camille's life. If the little
head held pictures beyond the ken of us simple women, the angels painted
them of a certainty. Moreover, it is that I willingly recount this grief