Human nature cannot stand the perpetual pressure of such keen anxiety, without an effort to relieve itself by thinking of something else.

Jacques said that Monsieur and Mademoiselle were for ever talking together of the past days,--it was 'Do you remember this ?' or, 'Do you remember that ?' perpetually.

He sometimes thought they forgot where they were, and what was before them.
But Jacques did not, and every day he trembled more and more as the list was called over.
"The third morning of their incarceration, the gaoler brought in a man whom Jacques did not recognize, and therefore did not at once observe; for he was waiting, as in duty bound, upon his master and his sweet young lady (as he always called her in repeating the story).

He thought that the new introduction was some friend of the gaoler, as the two seemed well acquainted, and the latter stayed a few minutes talking with his visitor before leaving him in prison.

So Jacques was surprised when, after a short time had elapsed, he looked round, and saw the fierce stare with which the stranger was regarding Monsieur and Mademoiselle de Crequy, as the pair sat at breakfast,--the said breakfast being laid as well as Jacques knew how, on a bench fastened into the prison wall,--Virginie sitting on her low stool, and Clement half lying on the ground by her side, and submitting gladly to be fed by her pretty white fingers; for it was one of her fancies, Jacques said, to do all she could for him, in consideration of his broken arm.