His head ached from the blows which had fallen upon it; it was growing dark--June day though it was,--and when first he seems to have become exactly aware of what had happened to him, it was when he was turned into one of the larger rooms of the Abbaye, in which all were put who had no other allotted place wherein to sleep.

One or two iron lamps hung from the ceiling by chains, giving a dim light for a little circle.
Jacques stumbled forwards over a sleeping body lying on the ground.

The sleeper wakened up enough to complain; and the apology of the old man in reply caught the ear of his master, who, until this time, could hardly have been aware of the straits and difficulties of his faithful Jacques.
And there they sat,--against a pillar, the live-long night, holding one another's hands, and each restraining expressions of pain, for fear of adding to the other's distress.

That night made them intimate friends, in spite of the difference of age and rank.

The disappointed hopes, the acute suffering of the present, the apprehensions of the future, made them seek solace in talking of the past.