be seen. She determined
to remain there, and did so, more or less uncomfortably, with Aline her
maid and little Francis. Madame Sauviat, naturally, took another room
near hers.

It was several days before Madame Graslin recovered from the violent
emotion which overcame her on that first evening, and her mother induced
her to stay in bed at least during the mornings. At night, Veronique
would come out and sit on a bench of the terrace from which her eyes
could rest on the church and cemetery. In spite of Madame Sauviat's mute
but persistent opposition, Madame Graslin formed an almost monomaniacal
habit of sitting in the same place, where she seemed to give way to the
blackest melancholy.

"Madame will die," said Aline to the old mother.

Appealed to by Madame Sauviat, the rector, who had wished not to seem
intrusive, came henceforth very frequently to visit Madame Graslin; he
needed only to be warned that her soul was sick. This true pastor took
care to pay his visits at the hour when Veronique came out to sit at the
corner of the terrace with her child, both in deep mourning.

XI. THE RECTOR AT WORK

It was now the beginning of October, and Nature was growing dull and
sad. Monsieur Bonnet, perceiving in Veronique from the moment of her
arrival at Montegnac the existence of an inward wound, thought it wisest
to wait for the voluntary and complete confidence of a woman who would
sooner or later become his penitent.

One evening Madame Graslin looked at the rector with eyes almost
glazed with that fatal indecision often observable in persons who
are cherishing the thought of death. From that moment Monsieur Bonnet
hesitated no longer; he set before him the duty of arresting the
progress of this cruel moral malady.

At first there was a brief struggle of empty words between the priest
and Veronique, in which they both sought to veil their real thoughts.
In spite of the cold, Veronique was sitting on the granite bench holding
Francis on her knee. Madame Sauviat was standing at the corner of the
terrace, purposely so placed as to hide the cemetery. Aline was waiting
to take the child away.

"I had supposed, madame," said the rector, who was now paying his
seventh visit, "that you were only melancholy; but I see," sinking
his voice to a whisper, "that your soul is in despair. That feeling is
neither Christian nor Catholic."

"But," she replied, looking to heaven with piercing eyes and letting a
bitter smile