‘The deliberation of the jury was not long either. Every one wept. When the acquittal was pronounced, the flax pounder took his insignia, retired rapidly, taking his daughter with him, and returned to the village by night.

‘Amid this public scandal the vicar could not avoid learning the truth on a host of points he had hid from himself. He was not affected by them. The obvious facts about which all the world was talking, he feigned to ignore. He did not ask to be removed, the bishop did not dream of proposing it. One would imagine that the first time he saw Kermelle and his daughter, he felt some emotion. He felt none. He betook himself to the manor-house at the hour when he knew he should meet father and daughter.

‘ “You have gravely sinned,” he said to her, “less by your madness, which God will forgive you, than in letting this very good woman be put in prison. An innocent woman, by your fault, has been treated for several days like a thief. The most honest woman of this parish has been led away by the police in the sight of all men. You owe her reparation. On Sunday the vestry-woman will be in her pew, in the last row, near the door of the church: at the credo you will go up to her, and you will lead her by the hand to your seat of honour which she deserve to occupy more than you.”

‘The poor mad girl did mechanically what was enjoined. She was no longer a being with feeling. After this time the flax pounder and his family were hardly seen any more. The manor-house had become a sort of tomb whence no sign of life was heard to issue.

‘The vestry-woman died first. The excitement had been too strong for this simple woman. She had not for a moment doubted Providence; but all that had shaken her. She weakened little by little: she was a saint.

‘The old man lived a few years longer, dying inch by inch, always shut up in his house, no longer talking to the vicar. He went to the church, but he no longer sat in his pew. He was so strong that he held out eight or ten years against this mournful agony.

‘His walks were limited to talking a few steps under the high lime-trees which shaded the manor-house. Now, one day, he saw on the horizon something unusual. It was the tricolour flag which floated on the church tower of Tréguier: the July Revolution had just taken place. When he learned that the king had gone away, he understood more than ever that he had belonged to the end of a world. The professional duty to which he had sacrificed everything, became objectless: he did not regret being attached to too high an ideal of duty: he did not think that he might have enriched himself like the rest: but he lost faith in everything except in God. The Carlist party at Tréguier went about repeating everywhere that this would not last, that the legitimate king would come back. He smiled at these foolish predictions. He died soon after, succoured by the vicar, who explained to him this beautiful passage that is read in the Service for the Dead:

‘ “Be not as the heathen, who have no hope.”

‘After his death his daughter was left without means of support. An arrangement was come to that she should be placed in the hospital. It is there that you saw her. Now, doubtless she is dead too, and others have occupied her bed in the General Hospital.’