as the hand of the duchess was an open palm for charity, she was worth
the time which her innocent confessions stole from the more serious
miseries of the parish.

When the vicar was announced the duchess rose, and made a few steps
toward him in the salon,--a distinction she granted only to cardinals,
bishops, simple priests, duchesses older then herself, and persons of
royal blood.

"My dear abbe," she said, pointing to a chair and speaking in a low
voice, "I need the authority of your experience before I throw myself
into a rather wicked intrigue, although it is one which must result
in great good; and I desire to know from you whether I shall make
hindrances to my own salvation in the course I propose to follow."

"Madame la duchesse," replied the abbe, "do not mix up spiritual things
with worldly things; they are usually irreconcilable. In the first
place, what is this matter?"

"You know that my daughter Sabine is dying of grief; Monsieur du Guenic
has left her for Madame de Rochefide."

"It is very dreadful, very serious; but you know what our dear Saint
Francois de Sales says on that subject. Remember too how Madame Guyon
complained of the lack of mysticism in the proofs of conjugal love;
she would have been very willing to see her husband with a Madame de
Rochefide."

"Sabine is only too gentle; she is almost too completely a Christian
wife; but she has not the slightest taste for mysticism."

"Poor young woman!" said the abbe, maliciously. "What method will you
take to remedy the evil?"

"I have committed the sin, my dear director, of thinking how to launch
upon Madame de Rochefide a little man, very self-willed and full of
the worst qualities, who will certainly induce her to dismiss my
son-in-law."

"My daughter," replied the abbe, stroking his chin, "we are not now in
the confessional; I am not obliged to make myself your judge. From the
world's point of view, I admit that the result would be decisive--"

"The means seem to me odious," she said.

"Why? No doubt the duty of a Christian woman is to withdraw a sinning
woman from an evil path, rather than push her along it; but when a woman
has advanced upon that path as far as Madame de Rochefide, it is not the
hand of man, but that of God, which recalls such a sinner; she needs a
thunderbolt."

"Father," replied the duchess, "I thank you for your indulgence; but the
thought has occurred to me that my son-in-law is brave and a Breton. He
was h