ve taken such precautions to compel me to
listen to you, it must, no doubt, be because you knew beforehand that
the words you had to say to me were such as I could not hear. Have the
goodness, therefore, to reflect, before you open this conversation,
that here as elsewhere I reserve the right--and I warn you of it--to
interrupt what you may say at the moment when it may cease to seem to me
befitting."

"As to that, madame," said the abbe, "I think I can answer for it that
whatever it may please me to say to you, you will hear to the end;
but indeed the matters are so simple that there is no need to make
you uneasy beforehand: I wished to ask you, madame, whether you have
perceived a change in the conduct of your husband towards you."

"Yes, monsieur," replied the marquise, "and no single day has passed in
which I have not thanked Heaven for this happiness."

"And you have been wrong, madame," returned the abbe, with one of those
smiles that were peculiar to himself; "Heaven has nothing to do with
it. Thank Heaven for having made you the most beautiful and charming
of women, and that will be enough thanksgiving without despoiling me of
such as belong to my share."

"I do not understand you, monsieur," said the marquise in an icy tone.

"Well, I will make myself comprehensible, my dear sister-in-law. I
am the worker of the miracle for which you are thanking Heaven; to me
therefore belongs your gratitude. Heaven is rich enough not to rob the
poor."

"You are right, monsieur: if it is really to you that I owe this return,
the cause of which I did not know, I will thank you in the first place;
and then afterwards I will thank Heaven for having inspired you with
this good thought."

"Yes," answered the abbe, "but Heaven, which has inspired me with a good
thought, may equally well inspire me with a bad one, if the good thought
does not bring me what I expect from it."

"What do you mean, monsieur?"

"That there has never been more than one will in the family, and that
will is mine; that the minds of my two brothers turn according to the
fancy of that will like weathercocks before the wind, and that he who
has blown hot can blow cold."

"I am still waiting for you to explain yourself, monsieur."

"Well, then, my dear sister-in-law, since you are pleased not to
understand me, I will explain myself more clearly. My brother turned
from you through jealousy; I wished to give you an idea of my power over
him, and from