or. What did he intend? He did not
know. Was he going to call these women? He did not know. He opened his
door, that was all, and his thought went no further.

The same morning at church, he had seen Suzanne, and said to himself, "I
will not look at her." He did not look at her. He kept his eyes lowered
when he turned towards the nave, but he could have said how many times
Suzanne lifted hers, if she were joyous or sad, and if she had a red ribbon
or a blue ribbon at her neck.

Oh! the eternal contradiction of mankind. He had not wanted to look at her
by day, and here he is throwing himself in her path in the middle of the
night.

The steps approached and his heart beat with violence; he was so agitated
that, at the moment when the two women passed before his door to reach the
lane which led to the bottom of the hill, he could hardly articulate in a
hesitating voice:

"Mademoiselle Durand."

They uttered a cry.

--It is I, he said coming forward. Is it possible? You here at such an hour
and in the rain?

--I had gone out with my maid, said Suzanne, and the rain has surprised us.

--Do not go farther. Shelter yourselves under my door. It is an April
shower; it will soon have passed.

At the same time he went down the steps before the house and took Suzanne's
hand. Never had he felt such boldness.

--I pray, Mademoiselle, do not refuse me the pleasure of offering you a
refuge for a few moments beneath my humble roof.

Suzanne accepted without making him plead any more. She went up the stairs
and entered the corridor. The servant followed her. At the end, on the
first steps of the stair-case, a lamp swung to and fro in the wind.

The Cure shut the door again and, passing near the two women, drawn up
against the wall, he brushed against the young girl's damp dress with his
hand.

--But you are wet, Mademoiselle, he said to her. Perhaps it would not be
wise to remain in this cold passage. Should I dare to ask you to go
upstairs an instant, and warm yourself at my fire?

His voice trembled with emotion, and he found that his hand was so near
hers that he had only to close his fingers to take Suzanne's. He seized it
therefore and inflicting on her a gentle violence: "Go up, I pray, go up,"
he said.

She allowed him to conduct her. He showed them into his library, which was
his favourite apartment, the sanctuary of his labours, his griefs and his
dreams. He took some vine-twigs which he threw in the fireplace