most frightful misfortune; I thanked her almost every time I
went to see her, that I might return in the evening or the following
morning. "All my dreams of happiness," said I, "all my hopes, all my
ambitions, are enclosed in the little corner of the earth where you
dwell; outside of the air that you breathe there is no life for me."

She saw that I was suffering and could not help pitying me. My courage
was pathetic, and her every word and gesture shed a sort of tender
light over my devotion. She saw the struggle that was going on in me; my
obedience flattered her pride, while my pallor awakened her charitable
instinct. At times she appeared to be irritated, almost coquettish; she
would say in a tone that was almost rebellious: "I shall not be here
to-morrow, do not come on such and such a day." Then, as I was going
away sad, but resigned, she sweetened the cup of bitterness by adding:
"I am not sure of it, come whenever you please;" or her adieu was more
friendly than usual, her glance more tender.

"Rest assured that Providence has led me to you," I said. "If I had not
met you, I might have relapsed into the irregular life I was leading
before I knew you.

"God has sent you as an angel of light to draw me from the abyss. He
has confided a sacred mission to you; who knows, if I should lose you,
whither the sorrow that consumes me might lead me, because of the sad
experience I have been through, the terrible combat between my youth and
my ennui?"

That thought, sincere enough on my part, had great weight with a woman
of lofty devotion whose soul was as pious as it was ardent. It was
probably the only consideration that induced Madame Pierson to permit me
to see her.

I was preparing to visit her one day when some one knocked at my door,
and I saw Mercanson enter, that priest I had met in the garden on
the occasion of my first visit. He began to make excuses that were as
tiresome as himself for presuming to call on me without having made my
acquaintance; I told him that I knew him very well as the nephew of our
cure, and asked what I could do for him.

He turned uneasily from one side to the other with an air of constraint,
searching for phrases and fingering everything on the table before him
as if at a loss what to say. Finally he informed me that Madame Pierson
was ill and that she had sent word to me by him that she would not be
able to see me that day.

"Is she ill? Why, I left her late yesterday afternoon