—­I have no niece, Veronica.

—­A niece, or a sister, or a relation.  After all you have kept me, although you could have found a better than myself.  Oh, very easily, I know ... and I thank you from the bottom of my heart, yes, from the bottom of my heart.  But could you have found one more devoted, more discreet?  I believe not; as much, perhaps; but more, I believe not.  Ah!  I tell you here, Monsieur le Cure, you can do everything you want, nobody shall ever know anything of it.

The Cure looked at his servant with amazement.

—­What do you mean by that, Veronica? he asked in a stern voice.

—­Oh! nothing, I mean nothing.  I mean that you can have entire confidence in your poor servant.

—­I thank you, Veronica, but I don’t know what you mean.

—­I explain myself badly doubtless, Monsieur le Cure.  Ah! pardon me, I was forgetting ... here, there is a letter which I have just found and which has been slipped under the door at night.

He looked at the address.  It was an elegant and bold hand, the hand of a woman.

XXIII.

THE LETTER

  “The beauty then, to end this war,
  Offers but a single way which we can hardly guess.”

  R. IMBERT (Nouvelles).

A sweet perfume was exhaled from it.

He opened it with a trembling hand.

That strange intuition of the heart which is named presentiment, told him that it came from Suzanne.

Pale with emotion he read: 

“MONSIEUR L’ABBE,

“I do not wish the day to pass without coming to ask your pardon for my father’s conduct towards you, and assure you that he does not think a single one of his wicked words.

“Do not keep, I pray, an evil memory of me, and believe that I should he grieved if a single doubt were to remain in your mind as to the sympathy and respect which you inspire in

“Suzanne Durand.

“P.S.  I have much need of your counsels.”

Marcel, full of a delicious trouble, read and re-read this letter.  He did not take careful note of his sensations, but he felt an ineffable joy overflow his heart, and at the same time a vague anxiety.

His servant’s voice recalled Him to himself.

—­Doubtless it is a sick person who asks for religious aid, she said.

Was there a slight irony in that question?

The priest thought he saw it.  He called out sharply: 

—­You are still there, Veronica?  Who has called you?  I don’t want you any longer.

—­Pardon me, Monsieuur le Cure, she answered humbly and softly, I was waiting....  I thought that perhaps you were going out to visit this sick person and that then I could be useful to you in some way.

—­You cannot be useful to me in any way, Veronica, But truly you astonish me.  What have you then to say to me?  Come, explain yourself at once.