From the silence and retirement of his home in Picardy he had come to Meaux,—­the town that was so astir, busy, thoroughly alive!  Inexperienced in worldly ways he came.  His face was beautiful with its refinement and power of expression.  His eyes were full of eloquence; so also was his voice.  When he came from Picardy to Meaux, his old neighbors prophesied for him.  He knew their prophecies, and purposed to fulfil them.  He ceased from dreaming, when he came to Meaux.  He was not dreaming, when he looked on Jacqueline.  He was aware of what he read, and how she listened, under those chestnut-trees.

The burden of the tracts he read to Jacqueline was salvation by faith, not of works,—­an iconoclastic doctrine, that was to sweep away the great mass of Romish superstition, invalidating Papal power.  Image-worship, shrine-frequenting sacrifices, indulgences, were esteemed and proved less than nothing worth in the work of salvation.

“Did you understand John, when he said that the priests deceived us and were full of robberies, and talked about the masses for the dead, and said the only good of them was to put money into the Church?” asked Jacqueline.

“I believe it,” he replied, with spirit.

“That the masses are worth nothing?” she asked,—­far from concealing that the thought disturbed her.

“What can they be worth, if a man has lived a bad life?”

“That my father did not!” she exclaimed.

“If a man is a bad man, why, then he is.  He has gone where he must be judged.  The Scripture says, As a tree falls, it must lie.”

“My father was a good man, Victor.  But he died of a sudden, and there was no time.”

“No time for what, Jacqueline?  No time for him to turn about, and be a bad man in the end?”

“No time for confession and absolution.  He died praying God to forgive him all his sins.  I heard him.  I wondered, Victor, for I never thought of his committing sins.  And my mother mourned for him as a good wife should not mourn for a bad husband.”

“Then what is your trouble, Jacqueline?”

“Do you know why I came here to Meaux?  I came to get money,—­to earn it.  I should be paid more money here than I got for any work at home, they said:  that was the reason.  When I had earned so much,—­it was a large sum, but I knew I should get it, and the priest encouraged me to think I should,—­he said that my heart’s desire would be accomplished.  And I could earn the money before winter is over, I think.  But now, if”——­

“Throw it into the Seine, when you get it, rather than pay it to the liar for selling your father out of a place he was never in!  He is safe, believe me, if he was the good man you say.  Do not disturb yourself, Jacqueline.”

“He never harmed a soul.  And we loved him that way a bad man could not be loved.”

As Jacqueline said this, a smile more sad than joyful passed over her face, and disappeared.