en in Montegnac about eighteen months, and was much liked
there. But this young pupil of Desplein and the successors of Cabanis
did not believe in Catholicism. He lived in a state of profound
indifference as to religion, and did not desire to come out of it. The
rector was in despair. Not that Roubaud did any wrong; he never spoke
against religion, and his duties were excuse enough for his absence from
church; besides, he was incapable of trying to undermine the faith of
others, and indeed behaved outwardly as the best of Catholics; he simply
prohibited himself from thinking of a problem which he considered above
the range of human thought. When the rector heard him say that pantheism
had been the religion of all great minds he set him down as inclining to
the doctrine of Pythagoras on reincarnation.

Roubaud, who saw Madame Graslin for the first time, experienced a
violent sensation when he met her. Science revealed to him in her
expression, her attitude, in the ravages of her face, untold sufferings
both moral and physical, a nature of almost superhuman force, great
faculties which would support her under the most conflicting trials;
he detected all,--even the darkest corners of that nature so carefully
hidden. He felt that some evil, some malady, was devouring the heart of
that fine creature; for just as the color of a fruit shows the
presence of a worm within it, so certain tints in the human face enable
physicians to detect a poisoning thought.

From this moment Monsieur Roubaud attached himself so deeply to Madame
Graslin that he became afraid of loving her beyond the permitted line
of simple friendship. The brow, the bearing, above all, the glance of
Veronique's eye had a sort of eloquence that men invariably understand;
it said as plainly that she was dead to love as other women say the
contrary by a reversal of the same eloquence. The doctor suddenly vowed
to her, in his heart, a chivalrous worship.

He exchanged a rapid glance with the rector, who thought to himself,
"Here's the thunderbolt which will convert my poor unbeliever; Madame
Graslin will have more eloquence than I."

The mayor, an old countryman, amazed at the luxury of this dining-room
and surprised to find himself dining with one of the richest men in the
department, had put on his best clothes, which rather hampered him, and
this increased his mental awkwardness. Moreover, Madame Graslin in her
mourning garments seemed to him very imposing; he