"M. le Cure will not take the money, my lady; he wants to speak to you."

"Then let him come!" said Mme. d'Aiglemont, with an involuntary shrug
which augured ill for the priest's reception. Evidently the lady meant
to put a stop to persecution by a short and sharp method.

Mme. d'Aiglemont had lost her mother in her early childhood; and as a
natural consequence in her bringing-up, she had felt the influence of
the relaxed notions which loosened the hold of religion upon France
during the Revolution. Piety is a womanly virtue which women alone can
really instil; and the Marquise, a child of the eighteenth century, had
adopted her father's creed of philosophism, and practised no religious
observances. A priest, to her way of thinking, was a civil servant of
very doubtful utility. In her present position, the teaching of religion
could only poison her wounds; she had, moreover, but scanty faith in the
lights of country cures, and made up her mind to put this one gently but
firmly in his place, and to rid herself of him, after the manner of the
rich, by bestowing a benefit.

At first sight of the cure the Marquise felt no inclination to change
her mind. She saw before her a stout, rotund little man, with a ruddy,
wrinkled, elderly face, which awkwardly and unsuccessfully tried to
smile. His bald, quadrant-shaped forehead, furrowed by intersecting
lines, was too heavy for the rest of his face, which seemed to be
dwarfed by it. A fringe of scanty white hair encircled the back of his
head, and almost reached his ears. Yet the priest looked as if by nature
he had a genial disposition; his thick lips, his slightly curved nose,
his chin, which vanished in a double fold of wrinkles,--all marked him
out as a man who took cheerful views of life.

At first the Marquise saw nothing but these salient characteristics,
but at the first word she was struck by the sweetness of the speaker's
voice. Looking at him more closely, she saw that the eyes under the
grizzled eyebrows had shed tears, and his face, turned in profile, wore
so sublime an impress of sorrow, that the Marquise recognized the man in
the cure.

"Madame la Marquise, the rich only come within our province when
they are in trouble. It is easy to see that the troubles of a young,
beautiful, and wealthy woman, who has lost neither children nor
relatives, are caused by wounds whose pangs religion alone can soothe.
Your soul is in danger, madame. I am not speaking now of the h