you, you
shall not remain here for forty-eight hours. I will have you recalled by
the Bishop. You laugh. You know me all the same; you know when I say _yes_
it is _yes_. A word is enough for Monseigneur, you know. _Magister dixit_.

Marcel knew the character of the old Cure well enough to know that he was
capable of keeping his word. Fearing to irritate him more by his obstinacy,
he thought it better to appear to yield.

--It is time for Mass, he said. We will talk about that again.

--Go, my son, and pray to the Holy Spirit.

LXXV.

DURING MASS.

"I have my rights of love and portion of the sun;
Let us together flee ..."

A. DE VIGNY (_La Prison_).

It will easily be credited that Marcel's thoughts had little in common with
the Holy Eucharist. He would have been a very ungrateful lover, if his
whole soul had not flown towards Suzanne. This was then his chief
preoccupation, while he murmured the long _Credo_, partook of Christ, and
recited his prayers.

What should he decide? that was his second. Should he go away? That meant
fortune, reconciliation with the Bishop, putting his foot in the stirrup of
honours. Young, intelligent, learned, what was there to stop him?

But that meant separation from Suzanne: saying farewell to all those divine
delights which he had just tasted. He had hardly time to moisten his
parched lips in the cup, before the cup was shattered. He was truly in
love, for he should have said to himself: "There are other cups." But for
him there was but one. Uncle Ridoux, the Bishop and greatness might go to
the devil. The promised cure and the episcopal mitre might go to the devil
too. Did he not possess the most precious of treasures, the most enviable
blessing, the supplement and complement of everything, the ambition of
every young man, the desire of every old man, of every man who has a heart:
a young, lovely, modest, loving, intelligent and adored mistress. But what
might not be the result of that love? What drama, what tragedy, and perhaps
what ludicrous comedy, in which he, the priest, would play the odious and
ridiculous character?

This love, which plunged him into an ocean of delights, would it not plunge
him also into an abyss of misfortunes?

Could it proceed for long without being known and remarked?

Scandal, shame, and death perhaps, a terrible trinity, were they waiting
not at his door?

For the viper which harboured at his hearth, had its piercing glassy e