ch Mme. de Dey gave out that she was
not well, the magnates of Carentan went to spend the evening at the
mayor's brother's house. He was a retired merchant, a married man, a
strictly honorable soul; everyone respected him, and the Countess held
him in high regard. There all the rich widows' suitors were fain to
invent more or less probable fictions, each one thinking the while how
to turn to his own advantage the secret that compelled her to
compromise herself in such a manner.

The public prosecutor spun out a whole drama to bring Mme. de Dey's son
to her house of a night. The mayor had a belief in a priest who had
refused the oath, a refugee from La Vendee; but this left him not a
little embarrassed how to account for the purchase of a hare on a
Friday. The president of the district had strong leanings toward a
Chouan chief, or a Vendean leader hotly pursued. Others voted for a
noble escaped from the prisons of Paris. In short, one and all
suspected that the Countess had been guilty of some piece of generosity
that the law of those days defined as a crime, an offense that was like
to bring her to the scaffold. The public prosecutor, moreover, said, in
a low voice, that they must hush the matter up, and try to save the
unfortunate lady from the abyss toward which she was hastening.

"If you spread reports about," he added, "I shall be obliged to take
cognizance of the matter, and to search the house, and then!..."

He said no more, but everyone understood what was left unsaid.

The Countess's real friends were so much alarmed for her, that on the
morning of the third day the _Procureur Syndic_ of the commune made his
wife write a few lines to persuade Mme. de Dey to hold her reception as
usual that evening. The old merchant took a bolder step. He called that
morning upon the lady. Strong in the thought of the service he meant to
do her, he insisted that he must see Mme. de Dey, and was amazed beyond
expression to find her out in the garden, busy gathering the last
autumn flowers in her borders to fill the vases.

"She has given refuge to her lover, no doubt," thought the old man,
struck with pity for the charming woman before him.

The Countess's face wore a strange look, that confirmed his suspicions.
Deeply moved by the devotion so natural to women, but that always
touches us, because all men are flattered by the sacrifices that any
woman makes for any one of them, the merchant told the Countess of the
gossip t