n which she
desired to take part. But he endeavored unselfishly to dissuade her,
telling her that her place was in the world and in society.

"I was born of the people and I wish to return to the people," she
replied. On which the rector, full of love for his village, said no more
against Madame Graslin's apparent vocation; and the less because she had
actually put it out of her power to continue in Limoges, having sold the
hotel Graslin to Grossetete, who, to cover a sum that was due to him,
took it at its proper valuation.

The day of her departure, toward the end of August, 1831, Madame
Graslin's numerous friends accompanied her some distance out of the
town. A few went as far as the first relay. Veronique was in an
open carriage with her mother. The Abbe Dutheil (just appointed to a
bishopric) occupied the front seat of the carriage with old Grossetete.
As they passed through the place d'Aine, Veronique showed signs of a
sudden shock; her face contracted so that the play of the muscles could
be seen; she clasped her infant to her breast with a convulsive motion,
which old Madame Sauviat concealed by instantly taking the child, for
she seemed to be on the watch for her daughter's agitation. Chance
willed that Madame Graslin should pass through the square in which stood
the house she had formerly occupied with her father and mother in her
girlish days; she grasped her mother's hand while great tears fell from
her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

After leaving Limoges she turned and looked back, seeming to feel an
emotion of happiness which was noticed by all her friends. When Monsieur
de Grandville, then a young man of twenty-five, whom she declined to
take as a husband, kissed her hand with an earnest expression of regret,
the new bishop noticed the strange manner in which the black pupil of
Veronique's eyes suddenly spread over the blue of the iris, reducing it
to a narrow circle. The eye betrayed unmistakably some violent inward
emotion.

"I shall never see him again," she whispered to her mother, who received
this confidence without betraying the slightest feeling in her old face.

Madame Graslin was at that instant under the observation of Grossetete,
who was directly in front of her; but, in spite of his shrewdness,
the old banker did not detect the hatred which Veronique felt for the
magistrate, whom she nevertheless received at her house. But churchmen
have far more perception than other men, and Monsieu