I often thought upon this change, and meditated how beautiful an illustration of confession’s blessings it furnished.  Frequently we were alone, but he never referred again to that memorable evening, even by implication.  At first I dreaded to have the door close upon us, feeling that he must perforce seek to take up the thread where he had broken it then.  But he talked of other things, and so easily and naturally that I felt embarrassed.  For weeks I could not shake off the feeling that, at our next talk, he would broach the subject.  But he never did.

Elysee returned, bringing me kind words from the Mother house, and a half-jocular hint that Superior General Philippe had me much in his mind.  No doubt there had been a time when the idea of becoming a Director would have stirred my pulses.  Surely it was gone now.  I asked for nothing but to stay beside Edouard, to watch him, and to be near to lend him a helping hand when his hour of trouble should come.  From that ordeal, which I saw approaching clearly and certainly, I shrank with all my nerves on edge.  As the object of my misery grew bright-eyed and strong, I felt myself declining in health.  My face grew thin, and I could not eat.  I saw before my eyes always this wretched boy singing upon the brow of the abyss.  Sometimes I strove not to see his fall—­frightful and swift.  His secret seemed to harass him no longer.  To me it was heavier than lead.

The evening the Brother Director returned, we sat together in the reading-room, the entire community.  Elysee had been speaking of the Mother-house, concerning which Brother Barnabas, an odd little Lorrainer who spoke better German than French, and who regarded Paris with the true provincial awe and veneration, exhibited much curiosity.  We had a visitor, a gaunt, self-sufficient old Parisian, who had spent fourteen days in the Mazas prison during the Commune.  I will call him Brother Albert, for his true name in religion is very well known.

“I heard a curious story in the Vaugirard house,” said the Brother Director, refreshing himself with a pinch of snuff, “which made the more impression upon me that I once knew intimately one of the persons in it.  Martin Delette was my schoolmate at Pfalsbourg, in the old days.  A fine, studious lad he was, too.  He took orders and went to the north where he lived for many years a quiet country cure.  He had a niece, a charming girl, who is not now more than twenty or one-and twenty.  She was an orphan, and lived with him, going to a convent to school and returning at vacations.  She was not a bad girl, but a trifle wayward and easily led.  She gave the Sisters much anxiety.  Last spring she barely escaped compromising the house by an escapade with a young miserable of the town named Banin.”

“I know your story,” said Albert, with an air which hinted that this was a sufficient reason why the rest should not hear it.  “Banin is in prison.”