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246 mine; we both tried to put off the evil day, for I am altogether too outspoken to be at my ease in bigoted households such as theirs, so we dodged around the question in a most uncomfortable state of mutual embarrassment.

Martine got us out of our dilemma by insisting that I must come to her, for she really does love and want me;—but there was my son-in-law. Naturally there was no reason why he should wish to have me as a permanent member of his household, and so there we all were! This made me feel as if my poor old bones were being put up for sale, and I kept out of their way as much as possible, while on their side they watched me with a suspicious eye.

I took refuge for a short time on the slopes of Beaumont in that little hut where I had been so sick with the plague in July; for the joke of it was that though the mob had burned my healthy house they left standing the worthless shed where Death and I had slept together, and now that he had no more terrors for me it was really a pleasure to go back to the poor little place with its trampled floor, still littered with the empty bottles of my somewhat funereal orgy.

The place was uninhabitable in winter, as I knew well enough; the door was half off its hinges, the