"And the child that I killed ?"--with a bitter laugh unlike her own.

"If they say so much already, if they say that to-day, what will they say to-morrow?
What will they say when they have heard her ravings?
Will it not be, the old and the young, the witch and her brood--to the fire?
To the fire ?" The spasm that shook her as she spoke defied his efforts to soothe her.
And how could he comfort her?
He knew the thing to be too likely, the argument too reasonable, as men reasoned then; strange and foolish as their reasoning seems to us now.

But what could he do.

What?
He who sat there alone with her, a prisoner with her, witness to her agony, scalded by her tears, tortured by her anguish, burning with pity, sorrow, indignation--what could he do to help her or save her?
He had wild thoughts, but none of them effectual; the old thoughts of defending the house, or of escaping by night over the town wall; and some new ones.

He weighed the possibility of Madame Royaume's death before the arrest; surely, then, he could save the girl, and they two, young, active and of ordinary aspect, might escape some whither?
Again, he thought of appealing to Beza, the aged divine, whom Geneva revered and Calvinism placed second only to Calvin.