talking quickly in a monotonous voice, as she did when she said
prayers. She said that I must obey my masters, that I must never
forget my religious duties, and that the farmer's wife would come and
fetch me the day before the feast of St. John.

I went out of her room with feelings which I could not express. But I
felt horribly afraid of hurting Sister Marie-Aimee's feelings. How
could I tell her? I had no time to think. Sister Marie-Aimee was
waiting for me in the passage. She took hold of my two shoulders, bent
her face towards me, and said, "Well?" She looked anxious. I said,
"She wants me to be a shepherdess." She did not understand, and
frowned, "A shepherdess," she said. "What do you mean?" I hurried on,
"She has found a place for me in a farm, and I am to milk cows and look
after the pigs." Sister Marie-Aimee pushed me away so roughly that I
bumped against the wall. She ran towards the door. I thought she was
going to the Mother Superior's room, but she went out, and came back
again, and began walking up and down the passage, taking long steps.
Her fists were clenched, and she kept tapping with her foot on the
floor. She was breathing hard. Then she leaned up against the wall,
let her arms fall as though she were overcome, and, in a voice which
seemed to come from a long way off, she said: "She is revenging
herself. Yes, she is revenging herself." She came back to me, took my
two hands affectionately in hers, and asked, "Didn't you tell her that
you would not go? Didn't you beg her to let you go to Mademoiselle
Maximilienne?" I shook my head and repeated in her own words exactly
what the Mother Superior had said to me. She listened without
interrupting me. Then she told me to say nothing about it to the other
girls. She thought that everything would be all right when M. le Cure
came back.

Next Sunday, as we were getting into line to go to mass, Madeleine ran
into the room like a mad thing. She threw her arms up in the air,
cried out, "M. le Cure is dead!" and fell right down across the table
near her. Everybody stopped talking, and we all ran to Madeleine, who
was screaming and crying. We wanted to know all about it. But she
rocked herself up and down on the table, and kept on repeating, "He is
dead! he is dead!" I could not think at all. I did not know whether I
was sorry or not, and all the time mass was going on, Madeleine's voice
sounded in my ears like a bell. There was