tion depended upon it? Had he fallen in love hopelessly and past
all reasoning? There is no man that some woman cannot make her slave. It
was not many years ago, that a far more saintly priest than he eloped to
Belgium with a pretty seamstress of Les Fosses. Then I thought of
Germaine!--that little minx, badly in debt--perhaps? No, no, impossible!
She was too clever--too honest for that.

"Have you seen Alice?" I broke our silence with at length.

He shook his head wearily. "I could not," he replied, "I know the
bitterness she must feel toward me."

At that moment Marie knocked at the door. As she entered, I saw that her
wrinkled face was drawn, as with lowered eyes she regarded a yellow
envelope stamped with the seal of the _Republique Francaise_.

With a trembling hand she laid it beside the cure, and left the room.

The cure started, then he rose nervously to his feet, steadying himself
against the table's edge as he tore open the envelope, and glanced at
its contents. With a low moan he sank back in his chair.--"Go," he
pleaded huskily, "I wish to be alone--I have been summoned before the
mayor."

* * * * *

Never before in the history of the whole country about, had a cure been
hauled to account. Pont du Sable was buzzing like a beehive over the
affair. Along its single thoroughfare, flanked by the stone houses of
the fishermen, the gossips clustered in groups. From what I caught in
passing proved to me again that his reverence had more friends than
enemies.

It was in the mayor's kitchen, which serves him as executive chamber as
well, that the official investigation took place.

With the exception of the Municipal Council, consisting of the baker,
the butcher, the grocer, and two raisers of cattle, none were to be
admitted at the mayor's save Tanrade, myself and Alice de Breville,
whose presence the mayor had judged imperative, and who had been
summoned from Paris.

Tanrade and I had arrived early--the mayor greeting us at the gate of
his trim little garden, and ushering us to our chairs in the clean,
well-worn kitchen, with as much solemnity as if there had been a death
in the house. Here we sat, under the low ceiling of rough beams and
waited in a funereal silence, broken only by the slow ticking of the
tall clock in the corner. It was working as hard as it could, its brass
pendulum swinging lazily toward three o'clock, the hour appointed for
the investigation.

Monsi