Silence! silence!" The train had indeed just passed Lamothe, and was rolling with a dull rumble across a sea of darkness--the endless plains of the Landes which the night submerged.

For ten minutes already not a sound ought to have been heard in the carriage, one and all ought to have been sleeping or suffering uncomplainingly.

However, a mutiny broke out.
"Oh! Sister!" exclaimed Marie, whose eyes were sparkling, "allow us just another short quarter of an hour! We have got to the most interesting part." Ten, twenty voices took up the cry: "Oh yes, Sister, please do let us have another short quarter of an hour!" They all wished to hear the continuation, burning with as much curiosity as though they had not known the story, so captivated were they by the touches of compassionate human feeling which Pierre introduced into his narrative.

Their glances never left him, all their heads were stretched towards him, fantastically illumined by the flickering light of the lamps.

And it was not only the sick who displayed this interest; the ten women occupying the compartment at the far end of the carriage had also become impassioned, and, happy at not missing a single word, turned their poor ugly faces now beautified by naive faith.
"No, I cannot!" Sister Hyacinthe at first declared; "the rules are very strict--you must be silent." However, she weakened, she herself feeling so interested in the tale that she could detect her heart beating under her stomacher.