unishment in not seeing my child, I who have never passed a day
without thinking of him in all these years! I wished to be forgotten,
and I have been. No one thought of me,--they believed me dead; and yet,
many a time, I thought of leaving all just to come here for a day and
see my child."

"Your child--see, here he is."

Catherine then saw Benjamin, and began to tremble violently.

"Benjamin," said Madame Graslin, "come and kiss your mother."

"My mother!" cried Benjamin, surprised. He jumped into Catherine's arms
and she pressed him to her breast with almost savage force. But the boy
escaped her and ran off crying out: "I'll go and fetch _him_."

Madame Graslin made Catherine, who was almost fainting, sit down. At
this moment she saw Monsieur Bonnet and could not help blushing as she
met a piercing look from her confessor, which read her heart.

"I hope," she said, trembling, "that you will consent to marry
Farrabesche and Catherine at once. Don't you recognize Monsieur Bonnet,
my dear? He will tell you that Farrabesche, since his liberation has
behaved as an honest man; the whole neighborhood thinks well of him, and
if there is a place in the world where you may live happy and respected
it is at Montegnac. You can make, by God's help, a good living as my
farmers; for Farrabesche has recovered citizenship."

"That is all true, my dear child," said the rector.

Just then Farrabesche appeared, pulled along by his son. He was pale and
speechless in presence of Catherine and Madame Graslin. His heart told
him actively benevolent the one had been, and how deeply the other had
suffered in his absence. Veronique led away the rector, who, on his
side, was anxious to talk with her alone.

As soon as they were far enough away not to be overheard, Monsieur
Bonnet looked fixedly at Veronique; she colored and dropped her eyes
like a guilty person.

"You degrade well-doing," he said, sternly.

"How?" she asked, raising her head.

"Well-doing," he replied, "is a passion as superior to that of love as
humanity is superior to the individual creature. Now, you have not done
this thing from the sole impulse and simplicity of virtue. You have
fallen from the heights of humanity to the indulgence of the individual
creature. Your benevolence to Farrabesche and Catherine carries with it
so many memories and forbidden thoughts that it has lost all merit in
the eyes of God. Tear from your heart the remains of the javelin evil
pl