'What if they are right, M.de Marsac ?' 'Who right ?' I asked roughly, drawing back afresh.
'The Sorbonne.' he repeated, his face red with excitement, his eyes peering uncannily into mine.

'Don't you see,' he continued, pinching my knee in his earnestness, and thrusting his face nearer and nearer to mine, 'it all turns on that?
It all turns on that--salvation or damnation! Are they right?
Are you right?
You say yes to this, no to that, you white-coats; and you say it lightly, but are you right?
Are you right?
Mon Dieu!' he continued, drawing back abruptly and clawing the air with impatience, 'I have read, read, read! I have listened to sermons, theses, disputations, and I know nothing.

I know no more than when I began.' He sprang up and began to pace the floor, while I gazed at him with a feeling of pity.

A very learned person once told me that the troubles of these times bred four kinds of men, who were much to be compassionated: fanatics on the one side or the other, who lost sight of all else in the intensity of their faith; men who, like Simon Fleix, sought desperately after something to believe, and found it not; and lastly, scoffers, who, believing in nothing, looked on all religion as a mockery.
He presently stopped walking--in his utmost excitement I remarked that he never forgot my mother, but trod more lightly when he drew near the alcove--and spoke again.

'You are a Huguenot ?' he said.
'Yes,' I replied.
'So is she,' he rejoined, pointing towards the bed.