s. Yes, I have had a great deal of
bother with him. That poor Mme. Poussette! It is not enough that one
is faded and worn and has lost one's only little child, but one must
also be _wished dead_, out of the way by one's husband. Ah--you are
startled, _mais c'est la belle verite_! It is a good thing to be a
clergyman, like you, Mr. Ringfield; you are removed from all these
_betises_, all these foolish imaginings. You do your work and look
neither to the right nor the left. How I wish I were like you! I only
pray, for I do pray sometimes, that no thought of me will ever darken
your young and ardent life; I only hope that no care for me will ever
turn you aside from your plain duty."

"Do not, please," broke in Ringfield, pushing back his chair so loudly
that she was obliged to beg more caution, "use that tone to me.
Twenty-six is not so very young. I should have spoken and felt as I
feel and as I speak when I was twenty. So Poussette is added to your
list of admirers! Will it be Father Rielle himself next, I wonder?
Oh, Miss Clairville--I was right! The theatre is no place for you. I
ask you to leave it, to forsake it for ever. This your opportunity.
Do not go back to it. I do not, it is true, know anything about it
from actual experience, but I can gather that it presents, must
present, exceptional temptations. Will you not be guided by me? Will
you not take and act upon my advice?"

"But the special troubles that beset me are here, not within the
theatre! If Poussette is silly, with his ridiculous attentions when he
thinks his wife is not looking, if the other person, if----"

"You mean this man Crabbe?"

She inclined her head; at the mention of the name all spirit seemed to
die out of her.

"If he maligns me, slanders and lies about me, that is here--here at
St. Ignace, and not at the theatre. Why, then, do you expect me to
return here for good? I come back too often as it is. I should leave
here altogether, but that some influence, some fate, always draws me
back."

"Whose influence? for with fate I will have nothing to do. God and a
man's self--with these we front the world, the flesh, and the Devil.
Crabbe's evil influence still! You knew him when he called himself by
another name?"

"Yes, Mr. Edmund Hawtree. We, we---- I suppose you would call it a
flirtation. He was very different then, as you may believe."

Jealousy leapt into Ringfield's breast, the first he had ever known,
a