said Edmond, "to make you ashamed of having considered these people of any kind of importance. We shall then be able to be more of one mind concerning this ridiculous deception."
"You shall not go my son," said the father, "what can this curiosity avail? I do not understand you, my friend; are not these unfortunate men miserable enough? must idle curiosity and petulant caprice also make a mockery of them? and what, if the oppressed should be betrayed, or arrested, as it has already so frequently happened, and all massacred without distinction, who then will have been the dupe to have slyly insinuated himself among them? or should they recognise or entertain suspicious of you?"
"Does not the old patron himself talk already like a Camisard?" said the doctor, laughing, "in short, do you not verily believe that the prophets would recognise and denounce us as godless people to the multitude? but tranquillise yourself, my cau-
