quenched now, and never to revive. It left her spirit empty and
yearning; she was fain to seek forgetfulness and cure in that life
afar, among the myriad paler lights of the city.



CHAPTER XIV

INTO THE DEEP SILENCE

There came an evening in April when Madame Chapdelaine would not
take her place at the supper table with the others.

"There are pains through my body and I have no appetite," she said,
"I must have strained myself to-day lifting a bag of flour when I
was making bread. Now something catches me in the back, and I am not
hungry."

No one answered her. Those living sheltered lives take quick alarm
when the mechanism of one of their number goes wrong, but people who
wrestle with the earth for a living feel little surprise if their
labours are too much for them now and then, and the body gives way
in some fibre.

While father and children supped, Madame Chapdelaine sat very still
in her chair beside the stove. She drew her breath hard, and her
broad face was working.

"I am going to bed," she said presently. "A good night's sleep, and
to-morrow morning I shall be all right again; have no doubt of that.