Jean Jacques did not go to the house of the widow of Palass Poucette
"next day" as he had proposed: and she did not expect him. She had seen
his flour-mill burned to the ground on the-evening when they met in the
office of the Clerk of the evening Court, when Jean Jacques had learned
that his Zoe had gone into farther and farther places away from him.
Perhaps Virginie Poucette never had shed as many tears in any whole year
of her life as she did that night, not excepting the year Palass Poucette
died, and left her his farm and seven horses, more or less sound, and a
threshing-machine in good condition. The woman had a rare heart and
there was that about Jean Jacques which made her want to help him. She
had no clear idea as to how that could be done, but she had held his hand
at any rate, and he had seemed the better for it. Virginie had only an
objective view of things; and if she was not material, still she could
best express herself through the medium of the senses.

There were others besides her who shed tears also--those who saw Jean
Jacques' chief asset suddenly disappear in flame and smoke and all his
other assets become thereby liabilities of a kind; and there were many
who would be the poorer in the end because of it. If Jean Jacques went
down, he probably would not go alone. Jean Jacques had done a good fire-
insurance business over a course of years, but somehow he had not insured
himself as heavily as he ought to have done; and in any case the fire-
policy for the mill was not in his own hands. It was in the safe-keeping
of M. Mornay at Montreal, who had warned M. Fille of the crisis in the
money-master's affairs on the very day that the crisis came.

No one ever knew how it was that the mill took fire, but there was one
man who had more than a shrewd suspicion, though there was no occasion
for mentioning it. This was Sebastian Dolores. He had not set the mill