Chapter Seven.

Chapter Seven.“Experience, like a pale musician, holdsA dulcimer of patience in his hands.”E.B. Browning.Max Deshoulières did not smile any more after he went away from Madame Lemaire, but he never forgot her little speech. It seemed to set all sorts of unknown strings vibrating, the words kept echoing back from his heart; things that had nothing to do with his life, as he fancied, floated up before him: children’s faces like angels’, the touch of tiny hands, sweet womanly voices, wistful grey eyes, all these strange uncalled-for visions haunted him; he could not have driven them away if he had wished it. If he had been an idle man, with time to spend in dreaming, he might have understood their meaning sooner; as it was, he wondered a little, and then flung himself heart and soul into a battle with some grim disease in a squalid room where there was the dirt without the picturesqueness of Charville. Almost unconsciously this man’s life had been one noble self-sacrifice. He seemed to use his great strength of will in setting aside all selfish aims. He worked with a single-mindedness out of which had grown a strange simplicity and tenderness. Thérèse, with all her hopefulness, had not his strong faith. If he had been more accustomed to make pictures, in which he formed a central figure, Madame Lemaire’s words might not have stirred him as they did. A hand had swept the strings, would the tones it set vibrating grow and swell into grand, beautiful chords of sweet harmony, or die away in a sad, sorrowful wail?That little fact of seeing Thérèse alone among all those people, vexed him with the Roulleaus. He went there the next morning. Thérèse saw him on the stairs, and fled back, foolish child, to her room, with a cold fear in her heart of what he might be come to propose. She had remarked his displeasure of the day before, and who knew what might grow out of it? Madame Roulleau used to invent little speeches of M. Deshoulières, which poor Thérèse had no reason for disbelieving; she felt them hard,—cruel. Her heart resented this trampling out of the bright things of life which they told her he was trying to force upon her. She liked sunshine, flowers, love,—liked them, and wanted them for herself with an impatience that would not so much as endure the thought of life without them. One feels a compassion for such natures, knowing how hard the lessons of time must prove to them, and yet it may be that their very buoyancy helps them to float over the stormy waves. It was so with Thérèse at present. She felt more confident of Fabien’s love now than she had done when he was near her and talking about it; she never doubted that he would return; she could turn her dingy little room in Rue St. Servan into a veritable palace with her bright thoughts of the future. There was a little precious likeness of Fabien which she would take out and talk to whenever Madame Roulleau was more than usually tyrannical. With so much sunshine before her, she could bear any thing so long as that terrible guardian would leave her alone.Downstairs the terrible guardian was expressing his opinion to Madame Roulleau; for little Roulleau kept out of the way on these occasions, and madame preferred it, since she was always afraid that his cowardice might betray them. M. Deshoulières was very grave, very determined: he had left all these minor things to be arranged by Madame Roulleau, he said; but she must quite understand that mademoiselle must have every thing that was right andconvenable. As he spoke he looked round, and wondered if she were happy there. His own tastes were very plain, but he was not sure whether a young girl would not require something brighter than this barren abode; and madame, who watched him like a cat, read his looks without difficulty, and was very judicious in her answers. She did not say too much, but she implied that mademoiselle preferred the freedom and unconventionality of their family life to permitting changes to be made on her account. “She has had enough of luxury, monsieur,” she said. Thérèse upstairs, shivering and trembling over that convent fancy, did not know how these two were concerned with the web and woof of her life: madame, with her covetous hands turning and twisting it to suit her purpose; Max, with his great tender heart and his quick abrupt ways, wanting to protect the little solitary figure, whose solitariness and helplessness among the crowd the day before had touched him with pity. “Poor child!” he said softly in his heart. He was not quite sure of the value of madame’s professions. He made up his mind to question Thérèse herself at the first opportunity.When he went away it was with the understanding that Thérèse should take no more solitary walks. Madame would have gladly escaped the concession, but it was not possible; and her busy thoughts went off at once to the question of how the affair could be managed, at least cost; or how it might be balanced by extracting further work from the girl. She went up to her with a gloomy depressed face which terrified Thérèse when she opened the door.“Is there any news? What has he said?” she asked, quickly.“This all comes from your imprudence in loitering at the market yesterday, mademoiselle. M. Deshoulières is highly displeased,—requests that we will provide an attendant for you. An attendant!” repeated madame, with a little hoot of scorn. “When my husband toils and toils, and I pinch and pinch; and then we are reproached because you do not walk about as if you were the daughter of M. le Préfet! I saw beforehand that it would not do. You must seek another domicile, mademoiselle.”“You will send me away!” said poor Thérèse, turning pale. “But where can I go?”Madame threw out her hands.“That is for M. Deshoulières to decide. There is always the convent. You will be safe enough behind thegrille,” she added, with a mocking laugh.Thérèse was very ignorant, and had no idea what unlimited powers M. Deshoulières’ guardianship might not convey. The tears gathered in her eyes, she almost flung herself at madame’s feet.“No, no, no, madame,” she implored, “do not send me away. I am not good enough for that life. I cannot give up Fabien. Do not send me away!”It was her whole heart crying out, but madame looked and listened coldly.“My children must not be sacrificed,” she said, folding her hands inexorably.There was a little silence. Madame glanced at Thérèse from under her eyelids; the girl had recovered herself, and was standing motionless, her eyes on the ground, and a red flush on her cheek. Either her pride had come to her aid, or she was making a desperate resolution. Madame thought it was time to waver.“If, indeed—” she said, slowly. “But no.”“If what, madame?”“You have had a grand education, without doubt, mademoiselle?”“I used to learn a great deal. I do not know that it was any good,” said Thérèse, wearily.“I am in treaty with an admirable instructress for Octavie and Adolphe. It would be an infinite loss to them: still—”“Do you mean that I could teach them?” said Thérèse, brightening up and looking delighted.“It is almost wrong of me,” madame declared, sighing. “I do not know what my husband will say to my weakness.”Thérèse cried out, gratefully, that she should never repent it. Her buoyant spirit reasserted itself; she drew a long breath of relief as she thought of Monsieur Deshoulières and the convent on one side, Fabien and happiness on the other, with Madame Roulleau, in her linen jacket, standing as arbitrix between them. If there had been a dozen Octavies and Adolphes she must have embraced her, as she did. Such joy did not mollify madame.“Who is to promenade with you?” she asked, crossly. “It must not be a fine lady, to ruin us in wages.”“I have thought of some one,” Thérèse cried out with eagerness. “Let it be old Nannon; she is very poor, and will be glad to get a little.”“That old creature!” exclaimed madame, who was secretly pleased, but felt it necessary to make a favour of every concession.Perhaps Thérèse also was actuated by the spirit of contradiction towards the unconscious offender, M. Deshoulières. “I should like her better than any one else,” she said.Madame went away well satisfied with her own tactics. By a little skilful management she could make these two play against each other. Thérèse was already thoroughly prejudiced against her guardian, and should he be displeased by the choice of Nannon, he would learn that it arose from the girl’s own wilfulness. It was far more likely that, having once spoken on the subject, he would not trouble himself about it again. Madame Roulleau was a clever woman, but she knew nothing of those new sounds which were beginning to make themselves heard in his heart.Before she left the room she told Thérèse to go to old Nannon’s, and desire her to come to Rue St. Servan. M. Deshoulières was gone to Epernon, and safe out of the way. Thérèse, who all the morning had been looking longingly at the soft sunshine and the cool delicate clouds which sailed lazily across her great expanse of sky, was glad to get out into the brightness. It was one of those exquisite days of broken light in which quaint old Charville seemed full of pictures and of memories; a capricious sky, a sweet tender glow upon the stones, here and there a keen shaft of sun-ray, here and there a deep grave shadow—contrasts, but not contradictions. Later in the day there was to be a mass in the Cathedral for the children who were just confirmed; the little white-veiled figures were flitting about in all directions. Thérèse stood and watched two who came along a narrow, dark street, and under a grey archway; two black-robed sisters in great white flapping caps, stretching out on either side like wings, held their hands. “Soyez tranquille, mon enfant,” one of them was saying, in her calm, hushed voice, as they passed Thérèse; it sounded almost like a benediction, as they all went quietly along under the Cathedral and the praying statues. Tears rushed into the girl’s eyes; she put out her hands with a sort of vague beseeching for some such kindly words, but no one saw or understood the gesture. The figures went away into the light, Thérèse remained sadly on the broad steps looking after them. With these solemn walls rising heavenwards; with these serene, mute statues—angels and their harps, saints with folded hands, crowned kings and queens, prophets, apostles, martyrs—standing in majestic unbroken calm, it seemed as if, after all, peace might be the happiness of life. Was it to be found in such an existence as these quiet women had chosen? Would it not be better for her to yield and do as they had done? She shivered at the thought. A little white butterfly fluttered down on the hand of one of the crowned figures, and rose again, as if the touch chilled it. “It is like me,” Thérèse thought bitterly; “I am not good enough for that cold, saintly life.” Poor child! There were all kinds of new thoughts wrestling within her; perhaps, among them, breathed the faint distant echo of an eternal truth. Neither in the cloister nor in the world will peace or happiness, or whatever we may call the highest earthly bliss, come to those who seek them selfishly. From behind some sad figure, in companionship where we least expect them, they may step forth smiling. But they are divine gifts; and He who gives has not made them the end of our endeavour, the goal of our race.The girl dashed away her tears, and came slowly down from the steps; she would have gone into the Cathedral, but the doors of the north portal were not open, and she went mechanically along the streets towards Nannon’s. The air was soft and healing, every thing gentle, dewy, and full of sweet beauty. Rain had fallen in the night, the broad fans of the horse-chestnut leaves still sheltered little depths out of which gleamed patches of wet, and diamond beads glistened on the grass, which feathered out here and there from a crevice in some old cracked wall. Presently Thérèse, who was not much thinking about her errand, caught the sound of a voice which recalled it. There was an old arched stone doorway lying in grey shade. Worn steps led up to it, and through the open space you could see a little sunny court, a stone fountain catching warm yellow tints, vines clambering round the edge, an old woman in a blue stuff gown and white cap leaning against it and chattering merrily. There must have been other invisible figures to whom Nannon was holding forth, for every now and then there came a little chorus of shrill laughter. The vine-leaves rustled, their shadows danced in the sunlight; Thérèse stood at the doorway and looked at it all for a moment before she called,—“Nannon!”“Holy Virgin!” exclaimed the old woman, starting, “it is Mademoiselle Veuillot!”Thérèse’s name still excited interest in Charville; two or three heads peered out from the framework of the doorway.“She looks thinner already, poor thing!” said one girl presently, in a compassionate whisper.“No wonder, Suzette, if Madame Roulleau provides her food.”“But what becomes of all that money?”“Who knows! Monsieur le Docteur is a good man, without doubt, but such a sum is a sore temptation when one has but to help one’s self.”“That is not possible,” said an old man, speaking in a thin cracked voice, and striking his stick on the ground. “The law provides that no med—”“Bah, bah, Père André, the law may provide, but we all know that the rich snap their fingers at the law. Henri, little wicked one, be quiet. Well, Nannon, what did mademoiselle want?”“Nannon is to be mademoiselle’sbonne!” cried the young girl, who had been the first to extract the information.“Nannon! mademoiselle’sbonne!”The old woman laughed as heartily as the others, her brown, grotesque face wrinkling into innumerable lines. “It is true, nevertheless, my children,” she said. “See what comes when least one expects it! M. Deshoulières says she is not to walk about alone; figure to yourself her choosing me! If it had been Suzette now—but no, look to yourself, Suzette; after this you will be having me for a rival with Pierre and Jacques.”The girl laughed, pouted, and twisted a wet vine-branch round little Henri’s head. “Is it all settled, Mère Nannon?”“There is Madame Roulleau to be seen.”“And she is a woman!” said old André, casting out his hands, and speaking in his poor thin voice. All the group seemed to agree in snubbing old André.“What of that? She will not eat me,” said Nannon, holding up her apron to shade her from the sun.“That is true,” assented Henri’s mother. “But you will need to look out for thesous.”“She will hold them tight; but some must creep out of her fingers,” Nannon said, nodding cheerfully; “and if M. Deshoulières drives that unfortunate boy out of his place, I shall say that the saints have sent us all a recompense. That is what they do sometimes, as I will say for them, and when one does not altogether expect it at their hands. And mademoiselle asked for Jean-Marie.”Thérèse waited quickly away from the little sunshiny vine-covered court set in the framework of its grim old pointed doorway, and went back to the Cathedral, going round this time to the south portal, by which she knew she could find entrance. It lay in the full blaze of sunlight: flying buttresses, open pillars, and enormous gargoyles threw sharp shadows on the warm stone. One of the doors was open: inside lay, as it seemed, a vast chasm of darkness, but out of the midst of it the opposite transept window gleamed like a gorgeous bed of jewels. A great bell tolled solemnly; up the broad steps swept a long procession of the white-veiled children, and sisters in their serge dresses. Thérèse followed them; she found a chair, and tried not to notice the stir and bustle about her. People crowded in until the great Cathedral was almost filled. The service was held outside the choir; the little white multitude stood in the centre: on one side were other children in red dresses and rose-wreaths; all round were throngs of loving or curious spectators—warm lights flashed through the magnificent glass. Presently from high overhead dropped the first sweet notes of the organ, and the young fresh voices swelled up to meet it.Some of the women were crying. There was something about the service which was inexpressibly touching; the vast sombre ancient church, the childish voices. Thérèse, who had been strangely excited before, almost sobbed as she knelt. Even there her desolation and solitude seemed to wrap her round; she had not so much as any one to pray for, she thought, except Fabien. Her prayer went up, eager and piteous, that Fabien might come and she might be happy.

“Experience, like a pale musician, holdsA dulcimer of patience in his hands.”E.B. Browning.

“Experience, like a pale musician, holdsA dulcimer of patience in his hands.”E.B. Browning.

Max Deshoulières did not smile any more after he went away from Madame Lemaire, but he never forgot her little speech. It seemed to set all sorts of unknown strings vibrating, the words kept echoing back from his heart; things that had nothing to do with his life, as he fancied, floated up before him: children’s faces like angels’, the touch of tiny hands, sweet womanly voices, wistful grey eyes, all these strange uncalled-for visions haunted him; he could not have driven them away if he had wished it. If he had been an idle man, with time to spend in dreaming, he might have understood their meaning sooner; as it was, he wondered a little, and then flung himself heart and soul into a battle with some grim disease in a squalid room where there was the dirt without the picturesqueness of Charville. Almost unconsciously this man’s life had been one noble self-sacrifice. He seemed to use his great strength of will in setting aside all selfish aims. He worked with a single-mindedness out of which had grown a strange simplicity and tenderness. Thérèse, with all her hopefulness, had not his strong faith. If he had been more accustomed to make pictures, in which he formed a central figure, Madame Lemaire’s words might not have stirred him as they did. A hand had swept the strings, would the tones it set vibrating grow and swell into grand, beautiful chords of sweet harmony, or die away in a sad, sorrowful wail?

That little fact of seeing Thérèse alone among all those people, vexed him with the Roulleaus. He went there the next morning. Thérèse saw him on the stairs, and fled back, foolish child, to her room, with a cold fear in her heart of what he might be come to propose. She had remarked his displeasure of the day before, and who knew what might grow out of it? Madame Roulleau used to invent little speeches of M. Deshoulières, which poor Thérèse had no reason for disbelieving; she felt them hard,—cruel. Her heart resented this trampling out of the bright things of life which they told her he was trying to force upon her. She liked sunshine, flowers, love,—liked them, and wanted them for herself with an impatience that would not so much as endure the thought of life without them. One feels a compassion for such natures, knowing how hard the lessons of time must prove to them, and yet it may be that their very buoyancy helps them to float over the stormy waves. It was so with Thérèse at present. She felt more confident of Fabien’s love now than she had done when he was near her and talking about it; she never doubted that he would return; she could turn her dingy little room in Rue St. Servan into a veritable palace with her bright thoughts of the future. There was a little precious likeness of Fabien which she would take out and talk to whenever Madame Roulleau was more than usually tyrannical. With so much sunshine before her, she could bear any thing so long as that terrible guardian would leave her alone.

Downstairs the terrible guardian was expressing his opinion to Madame Roulleau; for little Roulleau kept out of the way on these occasions, and madame preferred it, since she was always afraid that his cowardice might betray them. M. Deshoulières was very grave, very determined: he had left all these minor things to be arranged by Madame Roulleau, he said; but she must quite understand that mademoiselle must have every thing that was right andconvenable. As he spoke he looked round, and wondered if she were happy there. His own tastes were very plain, but he was not sure whether a young girl would not require something brighter than this barren abode; and madame, who watched him like a cat, read his looks without difficulty, and was very judicious in her answers. She did not say too much, but she implied that mademoiselle preferred the freedom and unconventionality of their family life to permitting changes to be made on her account. “She has had enough of luxury, monsieur,” she said. Thérèse upstairs, shivering and trembling over that convent fancy, did not know how these two were concerned with the web and woof of her life: madame, with her covetous hands turning and twisting it to suit her purpose; Max, with his great tender heart and his quick abrupt ways, wanting to protect the little solitary figure, whose solitariness and helplessness among the crowd the day before had touched him with pity. “Poor child!” he said softly in his heart. He was not quite sure of the value of madame’s professions. He made up his mind to question Thérèse herself at the first opportunity.

When he went away it was with the understanding that Thérèse should take no more solitary walks. Madame would have gladly escaped the concession, but it was not possible; and her busy thoughts went off at once to the question of how the affair could be managed, at least cost; or how it might be balanced by extracting further work from the girl. She went up to her with a gloomy depressed face which terrified Thérèse when she opened the door.

“Is there any news? What has he said?” she asked, quickly.

“This all comes from your imprudence in loitering at the market yesterday, mademoiselle. M. Deshoulières is highly displeased,—requests that we will provide an attendant for you. An attendant!” repeated madame, with a little hoot of scorn. “When my husband toils and toils, and I pinch and pinch; and then we are reproached because you do not walk about as if you were the daughter of M. le Préfet! I saw beforehand that it would not do. You must seek another domicile, mademoiselle.”

“You will send me away!” said poor Thérèse, turning pale. “But where can I go?”

Madame threw out her hands.

“That is for M. Deshoulières to decide. There is always the convent. You will be safe enough behind thegrille,” she added, with a mocking laugh.

Thérèse was very ignorant, and had no idea what unlimited powers M. Deshoulières’ guardianship might not convey. The tears gathered in her eyes, she almost flung herself at madame’s feet.

“No, no, no, madame,” she implored, “do not send me away. I am not good enough for that life. I cannot give up Fabien. Do not send me away!”

It was her whole heart crying out, but madame looked and listened coldly.

“My children must not be sacrificed,” she said, folding her hands inexorably.

There was a little silence. Madame glanced at Thérèse from under her eyelids; the girl had recovered herself, and was standing motionless, her eyes on the ground, and a red flush on her cheek. Either her pride had come to her aid, or she was making a desperate resolution. Madame thought it was time to waver.

“If, indeed—” she said, slowly. “But no.”

“If what, madame?”

“You have had a grand education, without doubt, mademoiselle?”

“I used to learn a great deal. I do not know that it was any good,” said Thérèse, wearily.

“I am in treaty with an admirable instructress for Octavie and Adolphe. It would be an infinite loss to them: still—”

“Do you mean that I could teach them?” said Thérèse, brightening up and looking delighted.

“It is almost wrong of me,” madame declared, sighing. “I do not know what my husband will say to my weakness.”

Thérèse cried out, gratefully, that she should never repent it. Her buoyant spirit reasserted itself; she drew a long breath of relief as she thought of Monsieur Deshoulières and the convent on one side, Fabien and happiness on the other, with Madame Roulleau, in her linen jacket, standing as arbitrix between them. If there had been a dozen Octavies and Adolphes she must have embraced her, as she did. Such joy did not mollify madame.

“Who is to promenade with you?” she asked, crossly. “It must not be a fine lady, to ruin us in wages.”

“I have thought of some one,” Thérèse cried out with eagerness. “Let it be old Nannon; she is very poor, and will be glad to get a little.”

“That old creature!” exclaimed madame, who was secretly pleased, but felt it necessary to make a favour of every concession.

Perhaps Thérèse also was actuated by the spirit of contradiction towards the unconscious offender, M. Deshoulières. “I should like her better than any one else,” she said.

Madame went away well satisfied with her own tactics. By a little skilful management she could make these two play against each other. Thérèse was already thoroughly prejudiced against her guardian, and should he be displeased by the choice of Nannon, he would learn that it arose from the girl’s own wilfulness. It was far more likely that, having once spoken on the subject, he would not trouble himself about it again. Madame Roulleau was a clever woman, but she knew nothing of those new sounds which were beginning to make themselves heard in his heart.

Before she left the room she told Thérèse to go to old Nannon’s, and desire her to come to Rue St. Servan. M. Deshoulières was gone to Epernon, and safe out of the way. Thérèse, who all the morning had been looking longingly at the soft sunshine and the cool delicate clouds which sailed lazily across her great expanse of sky, was glad to get out into the brightness. It was one of those exquisite days of broken light in which quaint old Charville seemed full of pictures and of memories; a capricious sky, a sweet tender glow upon the stones, here and there a keen shaft of sun-ray, here and there a deep grave shadow—contrasts, but not contradictions. Later in the day there was to be a mass in the Cathedral for the children who were just confirmed; the little white-veiled figures were flitting about in all directions. Thérèse stood and watched two who came along a narrow, dark street, and under a grey archway; two black-robed sisters in great white flapping caps, stretching out on either side like wings, held their hands. “Soyez tranquille, mon enfant,” one of them was saying, in her calm, hushed voice, as they passed Thérèse; it sounded almost like a benediction, as they all went quietly along under the Cathedral and the praying statues. Tears rushed into the girl’s eyes; she put out her hands with a sort of vague beseeching for some such kindly words, but no one saw or understood the gesture. The figures went away into the light, Thérèse remained sadly on the broad steps looking after them. With these solemn walls rising heavenwards; with these serene, mute statues—angels and their harps, saints with folded hands, crowned kings and queens, prophets, apostles, martyrs—standing in majestic unbroken calm, it seemed as if, after all, peace might be the happiness of life. Was it to be found in such an existence as these quiet women had chosen? Would it not be better for her to yield and do as they had done? She shivered at the thought. A little white butterfly fluttered down on the hand of one of the crowned figures, and rose again, as if the touch chilled it. “It is like me,” Thérèse thought bitterly; “I am not good enough for that cold, saintly life.” Poor child! There were all kinds of new thoughts wrestling within her; perhaps, among them, breathed the faint distant echo of an eternal truth. Neither in the cloister nor in the world will peace or happiness, or whatever we may call the highest earthly bliss, come to those who seek them selfishly. From behind some sad figure, in companionship where we least expect them, they may step forth smiling. But they are divine gifts; and He who gives has not made them the end of our endeavour, the goal of our race.

The girl dashed away her tears, and came slowly down from the steps; she would have gone into the Cathedral, but the doors of the north portal were not open, and she went mechanically along the streets towards Nannon’s. The air was soft and healing, every thing gentle, dewy, and full of sweet beauty. Rain had fallen in the night, the broad fans of the horse-chestnut leaves still sheltered little depths out of which gleamed patches of wet, and diamond beads glistened on the grass, which feathered out here and there from a crevice in some old cracked wall. Presently Thérèse, who was not much thinking about her errand, caught the sound of a voice which recalled it. There was an old arched stone doorway lying in grey shade. Worn steps led up to it, and through the open space you could see a little sunny court, a stone fountain catching warm yellow tints, vines clambering round the edge, an old woman in a blue stuff gown and white cap leaning against it and chattering merrily. There must have been other invisible figures to whom Nannon was holding forth, for every now and then there came a little chorus of shrill laughter. The vine-leaves rustled, their shadows danced in the sunlight; Thérèse stood at the doorway and looked at it all for a moment before she called,—

“Nannon!”

“Holy Virgin!” exclaimed the old woman, starting, “it is Mademoiselle Veuillot!”

Thérèse’s name still excited interest in Charville; two or three heads peered out from the framework of the doorway.

“She looks thinner already, poor thing!” said one girl presently, in a compassionate whisper.

“No wonder, Suzette, if Madame Roulleau provides her food.”

“But what becomes of all that money?”

“Who knows! Monsieur le Docteur is a good man, without doubt, but such a sum is a sore temptation when one has but to help one’s self.”

“That is not possible,” said an old man, speaking in a thin cracked voice, and striking his stick on the ground. “The law provides that no med—”

“Bah, bah, Père André, the law may provide, but we all know that the rich snap their fingers at the law. Henri, little wicked one, be quiet. Well, Nannon, what did mademoiselle want?”

“Nannon is to be mademoiselle’sbonne!” cried the young girl, who had been the first to extract the information.

“Nannon! mademoiselle’sbonne!”

The old woman laughed as heartily as the others, her brown, grotesque face wrinkling into innumerable lines. “It is true, nevertheless, my children,” she said. “See what comes when least one expects it! M. Deshoulières says she is not to walk about alone; figure to yourself her choosing me! If it had been Suzette now—but no, look to yourself, Suzette; after this you will be having me for a rival with Pierre and Jacques.”

The girl laughed, pouted, and twisted a wet vine-branch round little Henri’s head. “Is it all settled, Mère Nannon?”

“There is Madame Roulleau to be seen.”

“And she is a woman!” said old André, casting out his hands, and speaking in his poor thin voice. All the group seemed to agree in snubbing old André.

“What of that? She will not eat me,” said Nannon, holding up her apron to shade her from the sun.

“That is true,” assented Henri’s mother. “But you will need to look out for thesous.”

“She will hold them tight; but some must creep out of her fingers,” Nannon said, nodding cheerfully; “and if M. Deshoulières drives that unfortunate boy out of his place, I shall say that the saints have sent us all a recompense. That is what they do sometimes, as I will say for them, and when one does not altogether expect it at their hands. And mademoiselle asked for Jean-Marie.”

Thérèse waited quickly away from the little sunshiny vine-covered court set in the framework of its grim old pointed doorway, and went back to the Cathedral, going round this time to the south portal, by which she knew she could find entrance. It lay in the full blaze of sunlight: flying buttresses, open pillars, and enormous gargoyles threw sharp shadows on the warm stone. One of the doors was open: inside lay, as it seemed, a vast chasm of darkness, but out of the midst of it the opposite transept window gleamed like a gorgeous bed of jewels. A great bell tolled solemnly; up the broad steps swept a long procession of the white-veiled children, and sisters in their serge dresses. Thérèse followed them; she found a chair, and tried not to notice the stir and bustle about her. People crowded in until the great Cathedral was almost filled. The service was held outside the choir; the little white multitude stood in the centre: on one side were other children in red dresses and rose-wreaths; all round were throngs of loving or curious spectators—warm lights flashed through the magnificent glass. Presently from high overhead dropped the first sweet notes of the organ, and the young fresh voices swelled up to meet it.

Some of the women were crying. There was something about the service which was inexpressibly touching; the vast sombre ancient church, the childish voices. Thérèse, who had been strangely excited before, almost sobbed as she knelt. Even there her desolation and solitude seemed to wrap her round; she had not so much as any one to pray for, she thought, except Fabien. Her prayer went up, eager and piteous, that Fabien might come and she might be happy.

Chapter Eight.“Behind this eminence the sunWould drop serenely, long ere day was done;And one who climbed that height, might see againA second setting o’er the fertile plainBeyond the town, and glittering in his beam,Wind far away that poplar-skirted stream.”Archbishop Trench.Looking back afterwards, it seemed to Thérèse as if that soft July day had been her last day of liberty; Octavie and Adolphe became terrible taskmasters. The weather changed, it grew hot, sultry, oppressive; she used to sit in the stuffy little room at Rue St. Servan and gasp for a breath of fresh air. “Adolphe, must you be all day about your theme?” she would ask, a little too impatiently perhaps; and then Octavie would hold her disagreeable little head in the air and reply, “Mamma does not like you to correct Adolphe, mademoiselle.”She was not patient at all in these days. She hated the lessons and the eternal mendings, and all the petty humiliations madame visited upon her, enduring them only as alternatives for worse things. There must come a day of escape, she thought; but her hope was beginning to grow restless and feverish. Every morning she got up thinking something must be heard of Fabien that day, and every day the weight in her heart became heavier. She could not understand it. She was still so childish in some things that she thought the good things must come, the hard go away; I think she pictured Fabien as a kind of beautiful fairy prince, at whose appearance Madame Roulleau and Monsieur Deshoulières, and the terrible children, and the great heaps of worn-out clothes, would die away out of her life. She painted her own future in these colours until it seemed absolutely to belong to her. But, although when misgivings of its certainty obtruded themselves, she rebelled against them, I am inclined to think that misgivings came more frequently as the weeks went on.After all, the mending was not so bad as the teaching. The clothes were a burden, but they could not contradict her or make disagreeable remarks like Octavie, or have Adolphe’s fits of obstinate sulkiness. She was not patient, as I have said, but she might have pleaded a certain amount of excuse when she had but the choice of being called cross by the children or remiss by their mother. Octavie—who was dressed in the extreme of fashion, and had a sallow face, high strongly-marked eyebrows, black eyes, and hair drawn up into a number of little curls at the back of her head—kept a sharp look-out for poor Thérèse’s short-comings. “Mamma does not think Adolphe has improved in his writing;” “Mamma expects that you will see that our rooms are always in order, mademoiselle.” When Thérèse could not smile at these speeches they hurt her terribly.Old Nannon came to Rue St. Servan, and was duly acknowledged as the girl’s attendant whenever she went out. She and Madame Roulleau had a preliminary skirmish, from which madame retired a little discomfited; for, with all her simplicity, Nannon had no lack of shrewdness. In spite of the spirit of contradiction which prompted it, Thérèse had not made a bad choice. There was a fresh vigorous heart beating in the old woman’s bosom, an unconquerable fidelity, keen humour, clear wit; she liked any thing young and pretty, and felt a great compassion for this girl, who was not only young and pretty, but so friendless. Before a month was over she would have gone through fire and water to serve her. She served her better by the homely words she let drop. Every life has its pathos and its poetry, whether we acknowledge it or not; Nannon, with her hard fare and her weather-beaten face, was like the rest. Her lover had been a soldier, had fallen out of the ranks in a long march, and died of typhus in a hut by the roadside. It was months before she heard of it—months during which she waited, and hungered, and hoped.“And yet you lived?” asked Thérèse, looking at the brown face in wonder.“Si fait, si fait,” said Nannon, laughing and showing her white teeth. “If people died of such things, mademoiselle, the world would never go on as it does. And there was my sister to take care of besides; it would have been very selfish to talk about dying.”This sister and her children seemed all the world to Nannon. It appeared to Thérèse as if the whole burden of their existence fell upon those broad old willing shoulders. Once she had asked what Mère Belot did, and Nannon quite ruffled up at the question.“If Mademoiselle were a mother she would know that is enough,” she said, reproachfully.Thérèse could not understand her. Afterwards she found out by some chance that Mère Belot was one of those incapable women who are always taken care of, and toiled for, and shielded. There are poor queen bees as well as rich ones, and her sister brought her as much honey as she could scrape together, and pinched, and struggled, and fought for the children, while Mère Belot sat in the street outside the house and spun a little cotton yarn between her intervals of gossip, and accepted her good things placidly. They came to her quite as a matter of course; and, though it be but a poor little hive, it makes a great difference whether you are the queen or the working bee.Nannon had taken all the children into her faithful heart, but, perhaps, she loved Jean-Marie the best. He had been a trouble ever since he was born. He had been twice as long as the others in cutting his teeth, had frightened them all out of their wits with croup and small-pox and fevers, had broken his leg, and set the house on fire, and was for ever being dragged out of scrapes by Nannon. So many things happened to him that I believe she looked upon him as a hero at last. He was always making fresh starts on the road to fortune, and trailing back again before a week was over. This last start at Gohon’s farm had carried him quite a long way. He had been there more than a month: Nannon’s pride was excessive; she used to walk out through the waving cornfields, and watch the farm for an hour for the happiness of seeing Jean-Marie bring out the horses or fetch the cows. It was an innocent little triumph very dear to her; and, perhaps, it was no wonder that she felt it hard when M. Deshoulières brought to light that misdemeanour with the Cottereaus and Michault, which threatened to put an end to all her triumphs. She did not know that it was M. Deshoulières also who had gone out to the farm the next day, and asked that the boy might have a longer trial; she accused the doctor of having almost deprived Jean-Marie of his situation; and Thérèse had all her baseless prejudices against him confirmed by the old woman. It was very unfortunate, because she might have escaped from the Roulleau tyranny if Nannon had counselled her to appeal to M. Deshoulières; but since his decision against her boy, there was no harshness of which Nannon did not believe him guilty.So these two used to sit and talk on the hot, dry evenings, when Thérèse could get away from her labour in the stifling little house. Nannon and she would wander through the quaint old town, down the steep streets, and so to the quiet river, whose murmur fell on her ears like the sound of a comforting voice before she reached it.She liked those evenings best when the sky was tender primrose colour, and the dusky trees stood up against it in soft, shady, mysterious masses, with strangely bright bars of colour gleaming through them. There were disused fortifications, an old gateway, and a bridge; above these houses jumbled oddly together clambering up the side of the hill. She liked to watch the water slip calmly by, the leaves floating on its surface, the long grasses under the bank breaking it into little brown eddies. There were quiet shadows, shadows always comprehensible, never terrible; shadows which stole gently down to the roots of the willows, by which the river rolled along, catching their reflection on its surface, and then suddenly lit up with a sheet of tremulous golden light. A little rough causeway ran by the waterside, here and there a stunted sapling thrust itself out as though to kiss the stream that moved on regardless; here and there were little wooden standing-places—lavatoires—for the washerwomen, who all day long thumped and gesticulated and chattered shrilly, but in the evening left the river to its own unceasing songs.It was a very quiet, out-of-the-way little corner. The cornfields stretched far away—great flat plains; a bird might cry in the distance, the church bells clang, a peasant in his blouse go by and wish them good evening; except these signs of life there was very little to disturb them. Nannon thought ittriste; but it seemed to bring refreshment to Thérèse, who never before had liked silence and solitude. She was ill at this time, I think; feverish, restless, and sick with hope deferred. She had been waiting for two years, at her age a lifetime. Separation had not before been so cruel as it was now that the great bar between her and Fabien was gone, and only his presence was needed. Perhaps her hopefulness would have sunk altogether under the strain if it had not been for the river and Nannon.Sitting on a stone by its bank one evening, as I have described their doing, they were startled by seeing a figure coming along the narrow causeway towards them. The sun had set behind the upper town; they were too much under the hill to see the houses or the Cathedral spires, but the rich autumnal sunset lingered in the sky, crimson patches and dark purples on a background of tawny gold; there was a soft, breezy rustle in the air. The figure came out of dusky shadows along the causeway, and it startled Thérèse, because she saw at once it was not one of the blue-shirted labourers, who, at rare intervals, came back into the town by that path. When it drew nearer she recognised M. Deshoulières. He had been detained at a village, which lay not far from Charville, where a little child had been ill. That afternoon it had died, and M. Deshoulières, who loved little children, was coming home touched and softened. He had chosen this path, perhaps, because, although he did not think about it in his heart, the river and the long grasses, and the tremulous golden light, had their attractions also for him. He was looking at the water, and when he suddenly came upon these two figures sitting quietly there in the midst of the solitude, he could not refrain from an exclamation of surprise.“Mademoiselle Veuillot!” he said.Thérèse did not know what to answer. Neither of them had expected to meet the other here. She was half angry, half-frightened, lest this innocent little enjoyment of hers should also be pronounced unfitting. Both she and Nannon had risen, Nannon standing with her arms crossed defiantly.“We came here because it is so cool and so pleasant,” said Thérèse, looking beseechingly at her enemy. Surely the river might be spared to her! “Is it late?” she said, suddenly conscious of the depth of the shadows.“A little,” he answered dryly. In his heart he was wondering with a little amusement at her fancy for solitude, and at the companionship in which he found her. It seemed to him as if the silence and the shadows were more fitting for a grave man like himself than for such a child as Thérèse. In the waning light, in her black dress, she looked thin and pale. “This is not a place for you to sit in so late. There is mist from the river,” he said. “You should keep on the higher ground.”“We do not often stay so late, do we, Nannon?” said Thérèse, appealingly; “and it is so hot in the town.”Nannon, who represented the opposition to M. Deshoulières, was nothing loath to enter upon the field. “There is no harm in the river,” she said, with decision. “Monsieur would know that if he had lived in the town as long as I have. If mademoiselle prefers the band and a little distraction, she can always find it above there; but if she likes better to come and sit in this seclusion, there is nothing to prevent it. White mist does no one any hurt. It is the stirring up which brings the fever,” added Nannon, with a spiteful allusion to some sanitary measures of M. Deshoulières.“You are coming back now?” he said, addressing himself to Thérèse, without taking any notice of Nannon’s speech.Long afterwards she wondered at the clearness with which she remembered every detail of that walk, the little rough, untidy path, the rose-bushes growing out of the grey wall, the dog that stood and barked, then the houses and the steep hot streets. At the time she scarcely noticed them, but afterwards they came back. M. Deshoulières was grave and preoccupied; but once, when Nannon had lingered behind to speak to some friend, he turned round and said, with a sudden smile and a twinkle in his blue eyes,—“So that is the companion you have chosen, mademoiselle?”Thérèse murmured something, feeling horribly guilty: she wondered whether he would guess that her sympathy with Nannon began in the market.“She is not a bad old woman,” went on the unconscious Max. “She lets herself be eaten up by that sister of hers, and she does not always tell the truth; but she will be honest and faithful.”“I am sure she is faithful,” said Thérèse, forcing herself to say something, and thinking of Fabien.M. Deshoulières looked up quickly. “Is faithfulness a favourite virtue of yours, mademoiselle?”“It seems to me that it is the anchor of life,” answered the girl in a low voice.He looked at her again with a little wonder. There was something almost passionate in the tone with which she spoke those few words. His next question came out abruptly.“Does your present residence suit you? Are you sure that you would not prefer a change?” Thérèse thought of the convent, and turned sick. “I do not wish for any change,” she said, hurriedly.“You are content to remain where you are?”It was a strange sort of contentment, Thérèse thought, with a quick flash of self-pity; but the other place of refuge that was open to her would be unbearable. She said yes to his question, and then despised herself for the falseness of her answer. “Every place must be a little sad to me, just now, monsieur,” she went on, “for I belong to no one. But I am glad to stay at Mme. Roulleau’s.”He did not answer. She thought, perhaps, he had not listened to her pathetic little explanation; she did not know that it had gone straight for his heart. The pity that he had felt once or twice before became more intense, more personal. Perhaps the time and circumstances helped the feeling: the evening was soft, quiet, almost solemn; all his sympathies had been called out that day by the little child’s deathbed. “Let me go to sleep,” the little tired voice had said; there was no more pain afterwards, except in the hearts of the watchers. The words came back to him continually, with a vision of the tiny, wasted, flushed face; any appeal would have touched him in his present mood, and Thérèse seemed only an older child, with no one, as she said, to care for her. He walked on, thinking silently, and she made a great effort to put a question into words.“Have you heard nothing yet of Monsieur Saint-Martin?”“Nothing, nothing. One would have supposed that by this time a letter—a message, at least—might have reached Ardron. It would seem that the estrangement was serious. Why do people take so much trouble to forge their own unhappiness, Mademoiselle Veuillot?”There are many ways of doing that work, innocent, unconscious ways, sometimes. At this very moment, M. Deshoulières, with his big, manly, pitiful heart, was laying it open and making it ready for the sharp red-hot thrusts that came afterwards. We do the same, all of us, often. We grind the weapons that are to wound us. But, thank God, the weapons are not always evil, and such leave no poison in the wound.“Mademoiselle, did you hear the clock strike?” said Nannon, bustling up. “We must make haste, the days grow so short, and the virgins up there do not carry their lamps lit.”“Up there” was the cathedral porch, where the parable is graven, and the ten stand in their changeless attitudes of despair or bliss. M. Deshoulières, Thérèse, and Nannon passed under them. It was not so dark as Nannon represented, but a sweet duskiness was veiling all the bright tints; people sat outside their houses laughing and chattering with their children; a few lights began to appear; in the distance was heard the indistinct roll of a drum. Rue St. Servan looked gloomy when they turned into it: the light always left it early. When M. Deshoulières wished Thérèse good evening, he said, with a smile which she did not see,—“Do not stay so long by the river another evening, mademoiselle.”

“Behind this eminence the sunWould drop serenely, long ere day was done;And one who climbed that height, might see againA second setting o’er the fertile plainBeyond the town, and glittering in his beam,Wind far away that poplar-skirted stream.”Archbishop Trench.

“Behind this eminence the sunWould drop serenely, long ere day was done;And one who climbed that height, might see againA second setting o’er the fertile plainBeyond the town, and glittering in his beam,Wind far away that poplar-skirted stream.”Archbishop Trench.

Looking back afterwards, it seemed to Thérèse as if that soft July day had been her last day of liberty; Octavie and Adolphe became terrible taskmasters. The weather changed, it grew hot, sultry, oppressive; she used to sit in the stuffy little room at Rue St. Servan and gasp for a breath of fresh air. “Adolphe, must you be all day about your theme?” she would ask, a little too impatiently perhaps; and then Octavie would hold her disagreeable little head in the air and reply, “Mamma does not like you to correct Adolphe, mademoiselle.”

She was not patient at all in these days. She hated the lessons and the eternal mendings, and all the petty humiliations madame visited upon her, enduring them only as alternatives for worse things. There must come a day of escape, she thought; but her hope was beginning to grow restless and feverish. Every morning she got up thinking something must be heard of Fabien that day, and every day the weight in her heart became heavier. She could not understand it. She was still so childish in some things that she thought the good things must come, the hard go away; I think she pictured Fabien as a kind of beautiful fairy prince, at whose appearance Madame Roulleau and Monsieur Deshoulières, and the terrible children, and the great heaps of worn-out clothes, would die away out of her life. She painted her own future in these colours until it seemed absolutely to belong to her. But, although when misgivings of its certainty obtruded themselves, she rebelled against them, I am inclined to think that misgivings came more frequently as the weeks went on.

After all, the mending was not so bad as the teaching. The clothes were a burden, but they could not contradict her or make disagreeable remarks like Octavie, or have Adolphe’s fits of obstinate sulkiness. She was not patient, as I have said, but she might have pleaded a certain amount of excuse when she had but the choice of being called cross by the children or remiss by their mother. Octavie—who was dressed in the extreme of fashion, and had a sallow face, high strongly-marked eyebrows, black eyes, and hair drawn up into a number of little curls at the back of her head—kept a sharp look-out for poor Thérèse’s short-comings. “Mamma does not think Adolphe has improved in his writing;” “Mamma expects that you will see that our rooms are always in order, mademoiselle.” When Thérèse could not smile at these speeches they hurt her terribly.

Old Nannon came to Rue St. Servan, and was duly acknowledged as the girl’s attendant whenever she went out. She and Madame Roulleau had a preliminary skirmish, from which madame retired a little discomfited; for, with all her simplicity, Nannon had no lack of shrewdness. In spite of the spirit of contradiction which prompted it, Thérèse had not made a bad choice. There was a fresh vigorous heart beating in the old woman’s bosom, an unconquerable fidelity, keen humour, clear wit; she liked any thing young and pretty, and felt a great compassion for this girl, who was not only young and pretty, but so friendless. Before a month was over she would have gone through fire and water to serve her. She served her better by the homely words she let drop. Every life has its pathos and its poetry, whether we acknowledge it or not; Nannon, with her hard fare and her weather-beaten face, was like the rest. Her lover had been a soldier, had fallen out of the ranks in a long march, and died of typhus in a hut by the roadside. It was months before she heard of it—months during which she waited, and hungered, and hoped.

“And yet you lived?” asked Thérèse, looking at the brown face in wonder.

“Si fait, si fait,” said Nannon, laughing and showing her white teeth. “If people died of such things, mademoiselle, the world would never go on as it does. And there was my sister to take care of besides; it would have been very selfish to talk about dying.”

This sister and her children seemed all the world to Nannon. It appeared to Thérèse as if the whole burden of their existence fell upon those broad old willing shoulders. Once she had asked what Mère Belot did, and Nannon quite ruffled up at the question.

“If Mademoiselle were a mother she would know that is enough,” she said, reproachfully.

Thérèse could not understand her. Afterwards she found out by some chance that Mère Belot was one of those incapable women who are always taken care of, and toiled for, and shielded. There are poor queen bees as well as rich ones, and her sister brought her as much honey as she could scrape together, and pinched, and struggled, and fought for the children, while Mère Belot sat in the street outside the house and spun a little cotton yarn between her intervals of gossip, and accepted her good things placidly. They came to her quite as a matter of course; and, though it be but a poor little hive, it makes a great difference whether you are the queen or the working bee.

Nannon had taken all the children into her faithful heart, but, perhaps, she loved Jean-Marie the best. He had been a trouble ever since he was born. He had been twice as long as the others in cutting his teeth, had frightened them all out of their wits with croup and small-pox and fevers, had broken his leg, and set the house on fire, and was for ever being dragged out of scrapes by Nannon. So many things happened to him that I believe she looked upon him as a hero at last. He was always making fresh starts on the road to fortune, and trailing back again before a week was over. This last start at Gohon’s farm had carried him quite a long way. He had been there more than a month: Nannon’s pride was excessive; she used to walk out through the waving cornfields, and watch the farm for an hour for the happiness of seeing Jean-Marie bring out the horses or fetch the cows. It was an innocent little triumph very dear to her; and, perhaps, it was no wonder that she felt it hard when M. Deshoulières brought to light that misdemeanour with the Cottereaus and Michault, which threatened to put an end to all her triumphs. She did not know that it was M. Deshoulières also who had gone out to the farm the next day, and asked that the boy might have a longer trial; she accused the doctor of having almost deprived Jean-Marie of his situation; and Thérèse had all her baseless prejudices against him confirmed by the old woman. It was very unfortunate, because she might have escaped from the Roulleau tyranny if Nannon had counselled her to appeal to M. Deshoulières; but since his decision against her boy, there was no harshness of which Nannon did not believe him guilty.

So these two used to sit and talk on the hot, dry evenings, when Thérèse could get away from her labour in the stifling little house. Nannon and she would wander through the quaint old town, down the steep streets, and so to the quiet river, whose murmur fell on her ears like the sound of a comforting voice before she reached it.

She liked those evenings best when the sky was tender primrose colour, and the dusky trees stood up against it in soft, shady, mysterious masses, with strangely bright bars of colour gleaming through them. There were disused fortifications, an old gateway, and a bridge; above these houses jumbled oddly together clambering up the side of the hill. She liked to watch the water slip calmly by, the leaves floating on its surface, the long grasses under the bank breaking it into little brown eddies. There were quiet shadows, shadows always comprehensible, never terrible; shadows which stole gently down to the roots of the willows, by which the river rolled along, catching their reflection on its surface, and then suddenly lit up with a sheet of tremulous golden light. A little rough causeway ran by the waterside, here and there a stunted sapling thrust itself out as though to kiss the stream that moved on regardless; here and there were little wooden standing-places—lavatoires—for the washerwomen, who all day long thumped and gesticulated and chattered shrilly, but in the evening left the river to its own unceasing songs.

It was a very quiet, out-of-the-way little corner. The cornfields stretched far away—great flat plains; a bird might cry in the distance, the church bells clang, a peasant in his blouse go by and wish them good evening; except these signs of life there was very little to disturb them. Nannon thought ittriste; but it seemed to bring refreshment to Thérèse, who never before had liked silence and solitude. She was ill at this time, I think; feverish, restless, and sick with hope deferred. She had been waiting for two years, at her age a lifetime. Separation had not before been so cruel as it was now that the great bar between her and Fabien was gone, and only his presence was needed. Perhaps her hopefulness would have sunk altogether under the strain if it had not been for the river and Nannon.

Sitting on a stone by its bank one evening, as I have described their doing, they were startled by seeing a figure coming along the narrow causeway towards them. The sun had set behind the upper town; they were too much under the hill to see the houses or the Cathedral spires, but the rich autumnal sunset lingered in the sky, crimson patches and dark purples on a background of tawny gold; there was a soft, breezy rustle in the air. The figure came out of dusky shadows along the causeway, and it startled Thérèse, because she saw at once it was not one of the blue-shirted labourers, who, at rare intervals, came back into the town by that path. When it drew nearer she recognised M. Deshoulières. He had been detained at a village, which lay not far from Charville, where a little child had been ill. That afternoon it had died, and M. Deshoulières, who loved little children, was coming home touched and softened. He had chosen this path, perhaps, because, although he did not think about it in his heart, the river and the long grasses, and the tremulous golden light, had their attractions also for him. He was looking at the water, and when he suddenly came upon these two figures sitting quietly there in the midst of the solitude, he could not refrain from an exclamation of surprise.

“Mademoiselle Veuillot!” he said.

Thérèse did not know what to answer. Neither of them had expected to meet the other here. She was half angry, half-frightened, lest this innocent little enjoyment of hers should also be pronounced unfitting. Both she and Nannon had risen, Nannon standing with her arms crossed defiantly.

“We came here because it is so cool and so pleasant,” said Thérèse, looking beseechingly at her enemy. Surely the river might be spared to her! “Is it late?” she said, suddenly conscious of the depth of the shadows.

“A little,” he answered dryly. In his heart he was wondering with a little amusement at her fancy for solitude, and at the companionship in which he found her. It seemed to him as if the silence and the shadows were more fitting for a grave man like himself than for such a child as Thérèse. In the waning light, in her black dress, she looked thin and pale. “This is not a place for you to sit in so late. There is mist from the river,” he said. “You should keep on the higher ground.”

“We do not often stay so late, do we, Nannon?” said Thérèse, appealingly; “and it is so hot in the town.”

Nannon, who represented the opposition to M. Deshoulières, was nothing loath to enter upon the field. “There is no harm in the river,” she said, with decision. “Monsieur would know that if he had lived in the town as long as I have. If mademoiselle prefers the band and a little distraction, she can always find it above there; but if she likes better to come and sit in this seclusion, there is nothing to prevent it. White mist does no one any hurt. It is the stirring up which brings the fever,” added Nannon, with a spiteful allusion to some sanitary measures of M. Deshoulières.

“You are coming back now?” he said, addressing himself to Thérèse, without taking any notice of Nannon’s speech.

Long afterwards she wondered at the clearness with which she remembered every detail of that walk, the little rough, untidy path, the rose-bushes growing out of the grey wall, the dog that stood and barked, then the houses and the steep hot streets. At the time she scarcely noticed them, but afterwards they came back. M. Deshoulières was grave and preoccupied; but once, when Nannon had lingered behind to speak to some friend, he turned round and said, with a sudden smile and a twinkle in his blue eyes,—

“So that is the companion you have chosen, mademoiselle?”

Thérèse murmured something, feeling horribly guilty: she wondered whether he would guess that her sympathy with Nannon began in the market.

“She is not a bad old woman,” went on the unconscious Max. “She lets herself be eaten up by that sister of hers, and she does not always tell the truth; but she will be honest and faithful.”

“I am sure she is faithful,” said Thérèse, forcing herself to say something, and thinking of Fabien.

M. Deshoulières looked up quickly. “Is faithfulness a favourite virtue of yours, mademoiselle?”

“It seems to me that it is the anchor of life,” answered the girl in a low voice.

He looked at her again with a little wonder. There was something almost passionate in the tone with which she spoke those few words. His next question came out abruptly.

“Does your present residence suit you? Are you sure that you would not prefer a change?” Thérèse thought of the convent, and turned sick. “I do not wish for any change,” she said, hurriedly.

“You are content to remain where you are?”

It was a strange sort of contentment, Thérèse thought, with a quick flash of self-pity; but the other place of refuge that was open to her would be unbearable. She said yes to his question, and then despised herself for the falseness of her answer. “Every place must be a little sad to me, just now, monsieur,” she went on, “for I belong to no one. But I am glad to stay at Mme. Roulleau’s.”

He did not answer. She thought, perhaps, he had not listened to her pathetic little explanation; she did not know that it had gone straight for his heart. The pity that he had felt once or twice before became more intense, more personal. Perhaps the time and circumstances helped the feeling: the evening was soft, quiet, almost solemn; all his sympathies had been called out that day by the little child’s deathbed. “Let me go to sleep,” the little tired voice had said; there was no more pain afterwards, except in the hearts of the watchers. The words came back to him continually, with a vision of the tiny, wasted, flushed face; any appeal would have touched him in his present mood, and Thérèse seemed only an older child, with no one, as she said, to care for her. He walked on, thinking silently, and she made a great effort to put a question into words.

“Have you heard nothing yet of Monsieur Saint-Martin?”

“Nothing, nothing. One would have supposed that by this time a letter—a message, at least—might have reached Ardron. It would seem that the estrangement was serious. Why do people take so much trouble to forge their own unhappiness, Mademoiselle Veuillot?”

There are many ways of doing that work, innocent, unconscious ways, sometimes. At this very moment, M. Deshoulières, with his big, manly, pitiful heart, was laying it open and making it ready for the sharp red-hot thrusts that came afterwards. We do the same, all of us, often. We grind the weapons that are to wound us. But, thank God, the weapons are not always evil, and such leave no poison in the wound.

“Mademoiselle, did you hear the clock strike?” said Nannon, bustling up. “We must make haste, the days grow so short, and the virgins up there do not carry their lamps lit.”

“Up there” was the cathedral porch, where the parable is graven, and the ten stand in their changeless attitudes of despair or bliss. M. Deshoulières, Thérèse, and Nannon passed under them. It was not so dark as Nannon represented, but a sweet duskiness was veiling all the bright tints; people sat outside their houses laughing and chattering with their children; a few lights began to appear; in the distance was heard the indistinct roll of a drum. Rue St. Servan looked gloomy when they turned into it: the light always left it early. When M. Deshoulières wished Thérèse good evening, he said, with a smile which she did not see,—“Do not stay so long by the river another evening, mademoiselle.”

Chapter Nine.“A stirring of the heart, a quickening keenOf sight and hearing to the delicateBeauty and music of an altered world;...That mysterious light,Which doth reveal and yet transform; which giveDestiny, sorrow, youth, and death, and life,Intenser meaning; in disquietingLifts up; a shining light: men call it love.”Jean Ingelow.M. Deshoulières went slowly away from the Roulleaus towards his own house. Thecaféat the corner of the little Place was brilliantly lit; outside, between great tubs of evergreens and climbing daturas, men were sitting, smoking, drinking coffee, or mixing horrible little decoctions of absinthe. Instead of joining the group, and reading his evening budget of thePatrie, theGaulois, or theOrgane du Département, M. Deshoulières strolled away to one of the deserted seats under the trees, where there was not sufficient cheerful light or sound for the attraction of idlers, and he was not likely to be recognised. There was his own house opposite, dark and dreary-looking. Some of the windows round were open, light streamed out, figures sat in the balconies; one woman he noticed particularly in a white shining dress, with a child clambering on her knee; he could hear happy voices, laughter and singing. His own house looked like a dark patch in the middle of it all: presently, one little feeble light passed a window, disappeared, shone out again in the story above. “Veuve Angelin is going upstairs,” commented M. Deshoulières. For the first time a feeling of dissatisfaction took shape in his mind. Why had he no one better than Veuve Angelin to welcome him? Why should his house be unlike those others? It had a balcony,—he had hardly noticed it before,—why might not a lady, in a white shining dress, sit there in a little glow of warm light? He half closed his eyes, and fancied her: a slight figure, dark brown hair, lying lightly on her forehead; grey eyes, with the beseeching look he had more than once remarked. “Every place must be a little sad to me, for I belong to no one.” His shining lady would say no such pathetic words. Ah, M. Deshoulières, you opened your heart to Pity, and another visitant slipped in unawares!It seemed but a little while to himself that he sat there under the trees, yet, when at last he roused himself to move, half the lights had vanished, only two or three excited politicians remained before thecafé: there was a September chill in the air in spite of the day’s heat. Max was thoroughly ashamed, on glancing round, to realise the time he had wasted. It was too late to light another cigar; he got up, shook himself, and walked across to his house. A little primitive light—just a wick in a glass of oil—burnt feebly within the entrance; at the head of the stairs stood Veuve Angelin, in an injured frame of mind.“So monsieur has come at last,” she said sharply, “and all the world has been seeking him for the last two hours. There has been a message from the Evêché: they are all in commotion: Monseigneur may be dead by this time, or recovered, which would be almost as bad, considering that that miserable little Monsieur Pinot would have the credit of it.”“What was the message?” asked M. Deshoulières, calmly.“Monseigneur felt himself more feeble this evening, and desired monsieur to come without delay. If they found you absent, M. Jean was to fetch M. Pinot at once. I got him to talk about that affair at Minguard, which kept him a little; but it is too horrible to think of that other creature’s triumph. If monsieur were to walk very fast?”“There is no occasion for such an exertion, Marie, since M. Pinot is there. Monseigneur is quite safe with him.”“Monsieur will not go?”“Oh, yes, I shall go. Only I should like my coffee first. And, stay, have there been no other messages?”“Only one from that old André. The boy is worse—or so they said.”“Why did you not say so?” demanded M. Deshoulières, sternly. “Give me my coat at once.”“But, monsieur, the coffee—”“Give me my coat.”“Monseigneur—”But the doctor was clattering down the stairs.“What a man!” muttered Veuve Angelin, throwing up her hands. “He is no more fit to manage his affairs than a child—an idiot! I do what I can, but he overthrows every thing. Monseigneur sending for him, that wretched little Pinot longing to jump into his shoes, and in the face of it all he first orders coffee, and then rushes off to that old misery André, from whom he will never get asou. It upsets my nerves to think of it. Monseigneur at the Evêché, and that boy of old André’s in a hole of a place, both wanting him, and he must choose to go to the boy! And M. Jean was so agreeable! It is true, as he says, that I have a great deal of solitude to endure here, but one could bear a great deal if those one lived with were only reasonable. And there will be that cook of M. Pinot’s giving herself airs at the market to-morrow! I will take care to let them know whom M. Jean came to first—but monsieur never arrives at taking his position, do what I will.”It was midnight before M. Deshoulières reached the Evêché; the Bishop’s nephew received him freezingly.“It is some hours since we sent to request your services, monsieur.”“When I reached my house, Monsieur l’Abbé, I understood that your servant had wisely gone on to M. Pinot, and knowing Monseigneur to be in good hands I obeyed a pressing summons to a poor boy whose state gives me great uneasiness.” M. l’Abbé stared. Here was the chief pastor of the flock lying upstairs, sick and weary, and this doctor—occupying himself with attendance upon one of the very poorest of the sheep. He answered stiffly:—“M. Pinot is at this moment with the Bishop.” The doctor bowed.“He appears to understand the case, and I do not think we need deprive your other patients of your time.”“Under those circumstances, as I am very sleepy, M. l’Abbé,” said M. Deshoulières cheerfully, “I shall go and indulge myself with great satisfaction. With Monseigneur’s symptoms, you may have perfect confidence in Monsieur Pinot.”He left the Abbé speechless, ran down the broad oaken stairs, and through a yard and a garden out into the Place Notre Dame. It was a calm, beautiful night, overhead the stars were shining, before him rose the Cathedral in silent, grave repose. “This night’s work will be the making of Pinot,” he thought to himself, as he walked under the dark houses. “All Charville will know of it to-morrow. He is a painstaking little man, without originality of conception, but able to benefit by what he sees practised, which is more than one can say of all one’s trade. I am glad he should have this lift, though I shall miss the old Bishop’s good-natured face.”The next morning, when M. Deshoulières went out early, Veuve Angelin devoutly hoped he was going to the Evêché. At hisdéjeûner, however, she waited upon him with so lugubrious a face, that he felt himself obliged to inquire into the cause.“It cannot be true. Monsieur would not look so unconcerned. Otherwise it is reported that monsieur was refused permission to see Monseigneur last evening.”“It is quite true, Marie. A terrible fact.”“And that creature, Victoire, was boasting through the market that her master was in attendance all night.”“I am sorry to hear that Monseigneur required it.”“But, monsieur—”“Well?”“You are ruined!”“I? Not at all.”“Monsieur Pinot at the Evêché!”“We will get him an introduction to the Préfecture.”“Monsieur should not jest. I shall never be able to hold up my head at the market again.”“That is a very lamentable consequence. At all events, Marie, you will have the comfort of reflecting that a Bishop is at the bottom of your misfortunes.”M. Deshoulières sat smiling and unimpressed; Veuve Angelin was almost crying over the mortifications she foresaw to be in store for her, when a step sounded on the stairs. She went out and came running in again, radiant.“From the Evêché,” she said, giving him a note.M. Deshoulières, who was human, could not himself resist a little twinkle of satisfaction as he read. The Abbé, after making his compliments to M. Deshoulières, begged him to call at the Evêché as soon as his other engagements would admit. The note was pointedly civil.“Poor man!” thought the doctor, folding it up with a smile. “Such a concession ought to serve for penance.”“Monsieur is sent for?” asked Veuve Angelin, eagerly.“I am going to assist M. Pinot,” answered the doctor, gravely. “Don’t you know, Marie, that a great man has generally a second in command? After this, if Madame Victoire usurps the honours of the market, you may decidedly claim the privilege of following close behind.”Veuve Angelin, who could not understand a joke, was left not altogether at ease. “If monsieur loses his standing in the place, I shall quit,” she said to herself. “To have that woman setting herself before us would be unbearable. To assist M. Pinot! The Bishop would have more proper feeling than to allow such a thing to be named. M. Pinot!”M. Deshoulières meanwhile reached the iron gates, passed under the trees, from which brown leaves were dropping, and rang the bell of the Evêché. M. Jean himself opened the door, the Abbé was not to be seen. The doctor went upstairs into a large lofty apartment, wainscoted with dark wood. Logs were burning in an open fireplace; in a great cushioned chair drawn close to it, sat an old kindly-faced man, with a little black skull-cap covering his white locks, and his withered hands stretched out on the arms of his chair.“So you are come this time, Monsieur Deshoulières,” he said, with a little nod of welcome.“Monseigneur,” said the doctor, respectfully, “it was no intentional neglect on my part. I consider it my duty to attend first to the most pressing cases, and I was well aware that Monsieur Pinot would prove efficient.”“Oh, I know all about it. It was my nephew. Monsieur l’Abbé does not infrequently make a—hem—he makes mistakes,” said the Bishop, pulling himself up. “And now, my good M. Deshoulières, before we say any thing more, be kind enough to tell me how is the boy, and what is his name?”“He is a little better,” said the doctor, smiling, “and he is the grandson of old André Triquet, the wood-cutter.”“What does he most want?”“Every thing.”“Except a good doctor,” said Monseigneur, with a kind smile. “There he has the advantage of us all. Well, I must see to my rival’s comforts. And now for my next question. I do not receive much definite information: is it your opinion that the town is in a healthy condition?”M. Deshoulières shook his head. “There have been fever cases clinging to it all the summer.”“But they say that the cold weather will cure them.”“The cold weather may undoubtedly check the results, but if the cause remains, I venture, Monseigneur, to predict a fierce epidemic for next year.”“And the cause is—?”“The blindness or the wickedness of our authorities.”“You speak strongly, Monsieur Deshoulières.”“You would do the same, Monseigneur, if your work lay where mine does.”There was a little silence: the doctor became aware of the unintentional irony of his words; the Bishop also had recognised it, for he moved his head restlessly upon the cushion. Presently he stretched out his hand to the doctor and said with simple dignity,—“I am an old man. I cannot give the personal help this great town requires at my hands. Strength and opportunity are no longer mine, but at least I can pronounce the blessing of God upon those who, like you, are using them for His poor.” There was something of grandeur in his face and attitude; M. Deshoulières, much moved, rose up and stood silent. He had never before realised in the Bishop’s character the force which lay hidden behind an easy good-nature. At this moment a bell rang.“That is Monsieur Pinot,” said the Bishop, relapsing into a smile. “I shall not see him.”“Monseigneur, all this time we have not spoken of yourself.”“I did not send to you for that purpose. I believe your friend is doing me no harm, and it would give him so much satisfaction to cure me that I must let him have the chance for once. But if he fails, I bargain that André Triquet’s grandson and I change doctors.”“Nevertheless, I shall put a few questions,” said M. Deshoulières.When these were over, the Bishop, who liked a little gossip, detained him.“Is your strange trusteeship still going on?”“As it was.”“And you have received no tidings of the young man? It is peculiar, very peculiar. There was a girl, also, left under your charge, was there not?” Max flushed slightly. The last night’s thoughts, which occupation had hunted out of his mind, came back like a torrent. He caught a glimpse of himself in a great velvet-bordered mirror which stood over the chimney-piece, he looked old, grave, unlike a lover for Thérèse.“Mademoiselle Veuillot has found a temporary home, Monseigneur, at the house of Ignace Roulleau, the notary in Rue St. Servan. The conditions of her small legacy require her to remain in Charville.”“She might be received at our convent,” suggested the Bishop gravely.M. Deshoulières made no answer beyond taking leave.

“A stirring of the heart, a quickening keenOf sight and hearing to the delicateBeauty and music of an altered world;...That mysterious light,Which doth reveal and yet transform; which giveDestiny, sorrow, youth, and death, and life,Intenser meaning; in disquietingLifts up; a shining light: men call it love.”Jean Ingelow.

“A stirring of the heart, a quickening keenOf sight and hearing to the delicateBeauty and music of an altered world;...That mysterious light,Which doth reveal and yet transform; which giveDestiny, sorrow, youth, and death, and life,Intenser meaning; in disquietingLifts up; a shining light: men call it love.”Jean Ingelow.

M. Deshoulières went slowly away from the Roulleaus towards his own house. Thecaféat the corner of the little Place was brilliantly lit; outside, between great tubs of evergreens and climbing daturas, men were sitting, smoking, drinking coffee, or mixing horrible little decoctions of absinthe. Instead of joining the group, and reading his evening budget of thePatrie, theGaulois, or theOrgane du Département, M. Deshoulières strolled away to one of the deserted seats under the trees, where there was not sufficient cheerful light or sound for the attraction of idlers, and he was not likely to be recognised. There was his own house opposite, dark and dreary-looking. Some of the windows round were open, light streamed out, figures sat in the balconies; one woman he noticed particularly in a white shining dress, with a child clambering on her knee; he could hear happy voices, laughter and singing. His own house looked like a dark patch in the middle of it all: presently, one little feeble light passed a window, disappeared, shone out again in the story above. “Veuve Angelin is going upstairs,” commented M. Deshoulières. For the first time a feeling of dissatisfaction took shape in his mind. Why had he no one better than Veuve Angelin to welcome him? Why should his house be unlike those others? It had a balcony,—he had hardly noticed it before,—why might not a lady, in a white shining dress, sit there in a little glow of warm light? He half closed his eyes, and fancied her: a slight figure, dark brown hair, lying lightly on her forehead; grey eyes, with the beseeching look he had more than once remarked. “Every place must be a little sad to me, for I belong to no one.” His shining lady would say no such pathetic words. Ah, M. Deshoulières, you opened your heart to Pity, and another visitant slipped in unawares!

It seemed but a little while to himself that he sat there under the trees, yet, when at last he roused himself to move, half the lights had vanished, only two or three excited politicians remained before thecafé: there was a September chill in the air in spite of the day’s heat. Max was thoroughly ashamed, on glancing round, to realise the time he had wasted. It was too late to light another cigar; he got up, shook himself, and walked across to his house. A little primitive light—just a wick in a glass of oil—burnt feebly within the entrance; at the head of the stairs stood Veuve Angelin, in an injured frame of mind.

“So monsieur has come at last,” she said sharply, “and all the world has been seeking him for the last two hours. There has been a message from the Evêché: they are all in commotion: Monseigneur may be dead by this time, or recovered, which would be almost as bad, considering that that miserable little Monsieur Pinot would have the credit of it.”

“What was the message?” asked M. Deshoulières, calmly.

“Monseigneur felt himself more feeble this evening, and desired monsieur to come without delay. If they found you absent, M. Jean was to fetch M. Pinot at once. I got him to talk about that affair at Minguard, which kept him a little; but it is too horrible to think of that other creature’s triumph. If monsieur were to walk very fast?”

“There is no occasion for such an exertion, Marie, since M. Pinot is there. Monseigneur is quite safe with him.”

“Monsieur will not go?”

“Oh, yes, I shall go. Only I should like my coffee first. And, stay, have there been no other messages?”

“Only one from that old André. The boy is worse—or so they said.”

“Why did you not say so?” demanded M. Deshoulières, sternly. “Give me my coat at once.”

“But, monsieur, the coffee—”

“Give me my coat.”

“Monseigneur—”

But the doctor was clattering down the stairs.

“What a man!” muttered Veuve Angelin, throwing up her hands. “He is no more fit to manage his affairs than a child—an idiot! I do what I can, but he overthrows every thing. Monseigneur sending for him, that wretched little Pinot longing to jump into his shoes, and in the face of it all he first orders coffee, and then rushes off to that old misery André, from whom he will never get asou. It upsets my nerves to think of it. Monseigneur at the Evêché, and that boy of old André’s in a hole of a place, both wanting him, and he must choose to go to the boy! And M. Jean was so agreeable! It is true, as he says, that I have a great deal of solitude to endure here, but one could bear a great deal if those one lived with were only reasonable. And there will be that cook of M. Pinot’s giving herself airs at the market to-morrow! I will take care to let them know whom M. Jean came to first—but monsieur never arrives at taking his position, do what I will.”

It was midnight before M. Deshoulières reached the Evêché; the Bishop’s nephew received him freezingly.

“It is some hours since we sent to request your services, monsieur.”

“When I reached my house, Monsieur l’Abbé, I understood that your servant had wisely gone on to M. Pinot, and knowing Monseigneur to be in good hands I obeyed a pressing summons to a poor boy whose state gives me great uneasiness.” M. l’Abbé stared. Here was the chief pastor of the flock lying upstairs, sick and weary, and this doctor—occupying himself with attendance upon one of the very poorest of the sheep. He answered stiffly:—

“M. Pinot is at this moment with the Bishop.” The doctor bowed.

“He appears to understand the case, and I do not think we need deprive your other patients of your time.”

“Under those circumstances, as I am very sleepy, M. l’Abbé,” said M. Deshoulières cheerfully, “I shall go and indulge myself with great satisfaction. With Monseigneur’s symptoms, you may have perfect confidence in Monsieur Pinot.”

He left the Abbé speechless, ran down the broad oaken stairs, and through a yard and a garden out into the Place Notre Dame. It was a calm, beautiful night, overhead the stars were shining, before him rose the Cathedral in silent, grave repose. “This night’s work will be the making of Pinot,” he thought to himself, as he walked under the dark houses. “All Charville will know of it to-morrow. He is a painstaking little man, without originality of conception, but able to benefit by what he sees practised, which is more than one can say of all one’s trade. I am glad he should have this lift, though I shall miss the old Bishop’s good-natured face.”

The next morning, when M. Deshoulières went out early, Veuve Angelin devoutly hoped he was going to the Evêché. At hisdéjeûner, however, she waited upon him with so lugubrious a face, that he felt himself obliged to inquire into the cause.

“It cannot be true. Monsieur would not look so unconcerned. Otherwise it is reported that monsieur was refused permission to see Monseigneur last evening.”

“It is quite true, Marie. A terrible fact.”

“And that creature, Victoire, was boasting through the market that her master was in attendance all night.”

“I am sorry to hear that Monseigneur required it.”

“But, monsieur—”

“Well?”

“You are ruined!”

“I? Not at all.”

“Monsieur Pinot at the Evêché!”

“We will get him an introduction to the Préfecture.”

“Monsieur should not jest. I shall never be able to hold up my head at the market again.”

“That is a very lamentable consequence. At all events, Marie, you will have the comfort of reflecting that a Bishop is at the bottom of your misfortunes.”

M. Deshoulières sat smiling and unimpressed; Veuve Angelin was almost crying over the mortifications she foresaw to be in store for her, when a step sounded on the stairs. She went out and came running in again, radiant.

“From the Evêché,” she said, giving him a note.

M. Deshoulières, who was human, could not himself resist a little twinkle of satisfaction as he read. The Abbé, after making his compliments to M. Deshoulières, begged him to call at the Evêché as soon as his other engagements would admit. The note was pointedly civil.

“Poor man!” thought the doctor, folding it up with a smile. “Such a concession ought to serve for penance.”

“Monsieur is sent for?” asked Veuve Angelin, eagerly.

“I am going to assist M. Pinot,” answered the doctor, gravely. “Don’t you know, Marie, that a great man has generally a second in command? After this, if Madame Victoire usurps the honours of the market, you may decidedly claim the privilege of following close behind.”

Veuve Angelin, who could not understand a joke, was left not altogether at ease. “If monsieur loses his standing in the place, I shall quit,” she said to herself. “To have that woman setting herself before us would be unbearable. To assist M. Pinot! The Bishop would have more proper feeling than to allow such a thing to be named. M. Pinot!”

M. Deshoulières meanwhile reached the iron gates, passed under the trees, from which brown leaves were dropping, and rang the bell of the Evêché. M. Jean himself opened the door, the Abbé was not to be seen. The doctor went upstairs into a large lofty apartment, wainscoted with dark wood. Logs were burning in an open fireplace; in a great cushioned chair drawn close to it, sat an old kindly-faced man, with a little black skull-cap covering his white locks, and his withered hands stretched out on the arms of his chair.

“So you are come this time, Monsieur Deshoulières,” he said, with a little nod of welcome.

“Monseigneur,” said the doctor, respectfully, “it was no intentional neglect on my part. I consider it my duty to attend first to the most pressing cases, and I was well aware that Monsieur Pinot would prove efficient.”

“Oh, I know all about it. It was my nephew. Monsieur l’Abbé does not infrequently make a—hem—he makes mistakes,” said the Bishop, pulling himself up. “And now, my good M. Deshoulières, before we say any thing more, be kind enough to tell me how is the boy, and what is his name?”

“He is a little better,” said the doctor, smiling, “and he is the grandson of old André Triquet, the wood-cutter.”

“What does he most want?”

“Every thing.”

“Except a good doctor,” said Monseigneur, with a kind smile. “There he has the advantage of us all. Well, I must see to my rival’s comforts. And now for my next question. I do not receive much definite information: is it your opinion that the town is in a healthy condition?”

M. Deshoulières shook his head. “There have been fever cases clinging to it all the summer.”

“But they say that the cold weather will cure them.”

“The cold weather may undoubtedly check the results, but if the cause remains, I venture, Monseigneur, to predict a fierce epidemic for next year.”

“And the cause is—?”

“The blindness or the wickedness of our authorities.”

“You speak strongly, Monsieur Deshoulières.”

“You would do the same, Monseigneur, if your work lay where mine does.”

There was a little silence: the doctor became aware of the unintentional irony of his words; the Bishop also had recognised it, for he moved his head restlessly upon the cushion. Presently he stretched out his hand to the doctor and said with simple dignity,—

“I am an old man. I cannot give the personal help this great town requires at my hands. Strength and opportunity are no longer mine, but at least I can pronounce the blessing of God upon those who, like you, are using them for His poor.” There was something of grandeur in his face and attitude; M. Deshoulières, much moved, rose up and stood silent. He had never before realised in the Bishop’s character the force which lay hidden behind an easy good-nature. At this moment a bell rang.

“That is Monsieur Pinot,” said the Bishop, relapsing into a smile. “I shall not see him.”

“Monseigneur, all this time we have not spoken of yourself.”

“I did not send to you for that purpose. I believe your friend is doing me no harm, and it would give him so much satisfaction to cure me that I must let him have the chance for once. But if he fails, I bargain that André Triquet’s grandson and I change doctors.”

“Nevertheless, I shall put a few questions,” said M. Deshoulières.

When these were over, the Bishop, who liked a little gossip, detained him.

“Is your strange trusteeship still going on?”

“As it was.”

“And you have received no tidings of the young man? It is peculiar, very peculiar. There was a girl, also, left under your charge, was there not?” Max flushed slightly. The last night’s thoughts, which occupation had hunted out of his mind, came back like a torrent. He caught a glimpse of himself in a great velvet-bordered mirror which stood over the chimney-piece, he looked old, grave, unlike a lover for Thérèse.

“Mademoiselle Veuillot has found a temporary home, Monseigneur, at the house of Ignace Roulleau, the notary in Rue St. Servan. The conditions of her small legacy require her to remain in Charville.”

“She might be received at our convent,” suggested the Bishop gravely.

M. Deshoulières made no answer beyond taking leave.

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