Accordingly, not long afterwards, he returned to the convent of Gif aforesaid, where he showed more austerity than he had ever done before, and spoke wrathfully to all the nuns, telling one that her veil was not low enough, another that she carried her head too high, and another that she did not do him reverence as a nun should do.  So harsh was he in respect of all these trifles, that they feared him as though he had been a god sitting on the throne of judgment.

Being gouty, he grew very weary in visiting all the usual parts of the convent, and it thus came to pass that about the hour for vespers, an hour which he had himself fixed upon, he found himself in the dormitory, when the Abbess said to him—­

“Reverend father, it is time to go to vespers.”

“Go, mother,” he replied, “do you go to vespers.  I am so weary that I will remain here, yet not to rest but to speak to Sister Marie, of whom I have had a very bad report, for I am told that she prates like a worldly-minded woman.”

The Abbess, who was aunt to the maiden’s mother, begged him to reprove her soundly, and left her alone with him and a young monk who accompanied him.

When he found himself alone with Sister Marie, he began to lift up her veil, and to tell her to look at him.  She answered that the rule of her order forbade her to look at men.

“It is well said, my daughter,” he replied, “but you must not consider us monks as men.”

Then Sister Marie, fearing to sin by disobedience, looked him in the face; but he was so ugly that she though it rather a penance than a sin to look at him.

The good father, after telling her at length of his goodwill towards her, sought to lay his hand upon her breasts; but she repulsed him, as was her duty; whereupon, in great wrath, he said to her—­

“Should a nun know that she has breasts?”

“I know that I have,” she replied, “and certes neither you nor any other shall ever touch them.  I am not so young and ignorant that I do not know the difference between what is sin and what is not.”

When he saw that such talk would not prevail upon her, he adopted a different plan, and said—­

“Alas, my daughter, I must make known to you my extreme need.  I have an infirmity which all the physicians hold to be incurable unless I have pleasure with some woman whom I greatly love.  For my part, I would rather die than commit a mortal sin; but, when it comes to that, I know that simple fornication is in no wise to be compared with the sin of homicide.  So, if you love my life, you will preserve it for me, as well as your own conscience from cruelty.”

She asked him what manner of pleasure he desired to have.  He replied that she might safely surrender her conscience to his own, and that he would do nothing that could be a burden to either.