—­No, Monsieur le Cure, there is midnight striking.  It is time to repose, I wish you good-night, sir.

—­Good-night, Veronica.

“What a strange woman,” said Marcel to himself, “what can she want with me.  One would say that she had a secret to confide to me and that she does not dare....  Could she have any suspicion?  No, it is impossible.  How could she know what I want to hide from myself.  She has caught two or three words perhaps; but what could she understand, and what have I let drop to compromise me?  She has evidently heard others, for she was here before me, and these old walls have been witnesses, I am sure, of many groanings of the soul....  Let us be cautious, nevertheless, and repress within ourselves the thoughts which would come forth.  A wise precept.  It was a precept of my master of rhetoric.  Yes, let us be cautious; in spite of this woman’s appearance of devotion, who would trust to such marks of affection?  The servant’s enemy is his master; and I clearly see that independently of my dignity, I must not make the least false step; what torments I should reserve to myself for the future.

“And this letter of Suzanne, the adorable and lovely Suzanne!  What an emotion suddenly seized me at the sight of that unknown handwriting, which I had a presentiment was here.  Oh! what a strange mystery is man’s heart.  I, a priest, with a nature said to be energetic and strong.  I trembled and was affected like a child, because it has pleased a little school-girl to write me a couple of lines in order to excuse her father’s rudeness.  What is more natural than such conduct?  Is it not the act of a well-bred girl?  And yet already my foolish brain is beating the country and travelling into the land of fancies ... of abominable fancies.

“She asks me for counsel; doubtless I will give it her.  Is it not my duty and business as priest? but where, but when can I see her?...”

And he went very thoughtfully to bed, with his head full of dreams.

XXIV.

THE FIRST MEETING.

  “Ah! let him, my child,
  Ah! let him proceed. 
  When I was a Curate
  I did much the same.”

  ANONYMOUS (Le chant du Cure).

The first person he saw the next day at morning Mass was Suzanne Durand.  She had not yet come to these low Masses, which are affected usually by the devout, because the church is then more empty, and they feel themselves more alone with God or with the priest; therefore the Cure was deeply affected by this pious eagerness.

It is doubtful whether, on that day, his prayers reached the throne of the Eternal, for he brought but little fervour to the holy sacrifice.

A good woman who had given twenty sous to buy a place in the firmament for her defunct spouse, was quite scandalized to remark that the Cure was eating in a heedless manner the wafer which, for nearly 2000 years, serves as a lodging for Christ.