marshes, or by carrying the salt to the harbor?"

"Ah, monsieur, I couldn't do that work three months. I am not strong
enough, and if I died my father would have to beg. I am forced to take
a business which only needs a little knack and a great deal of
patience."

"But how can two persons live on twelve sous a day?"

"Oh, monsieur, we eat cakes made of buckwheat, and barnacles which I
get off the rocks."

"How old are you?"

"Thirty-seven."

"Did you ever leave Croisic?"

"I went once to Guerande to draw for the conscription; and I went to
Savenay to the messieurs who measure for the army. If I had been half
an inch taller they'd have made me a soldier. I should have died of my
first march, and my poor father would to-day be begging his bread."

I had thought out many dramas; Pauline was accustomed to great
emotions beside a man so suffering as myself; well, never had either
of us listened to words so moving as these. We walked on in silence,
measuring, each of us, the silent depths of that obscure life,
admiring the nobility of a devotion which was ignorant of itself. The
strength of that feebleness amazed us; the man's unconscious
generosity belittled us. I saw that poor being of instinct chained to