“I will take care of myself; I will get some sleep; and I will not be sad any longer,” I answered.

“And you will work?”

“And I will work—­but, you, Edmee, will you forgive me for all the pain I have caused you? and will you try to like me a little?”

“I shall like you very much,” she replied, “if you are always as you are this evening.”

On the morrow, at daybreak, I went to the abbe’s room.  He was already up and reading.

“Monsieur Aubert,” I said to him, “you have several times offered to give me lessons.  I now come to request you to carry out your kind offer.”

I had spent part of the night in preparing this opening speech and in deciding how I had best comport myself in the abbe’s presence.  Without really hating him, for I could quite see that he meant well and that he bore me ill-will only because of my faults, I felt very bitter towards him.  Inwardly I recognised that I deserved all the bad things he had said about me to Edmee; but it seemed to me that he might have insisted somewhat more on the good side of mine to which he had given a merely passing word, and which could not have escaped the notice of a man so observant as himself.  I had determined, therefore, to be very cold and very proud in my bearing towards him.  To this end I judged with a certain show of logic, that I ought to display great docility as long as the lesson lasted, and that immediately afterwards I ought to leave him with a very curt expression of thanks.  In a word, I wished to humiliate him in his post of tutor; for I was not unaware that he depended for his livelihood on my uncle, and that, unless he renounced this livelihood or showed himself ungrateful, he could not well refuse to undertake my education.  My reasoning here was very good; but the spirit which prompted it was very bad; and subsequently I felt so much regret for my behaviour that I made him a sort of friendly confession with a request for absolution.

However, not to anticipate events, I will simply say that the first few days after my conversation afforded me an ample revenge for the prejudices, too well founded in many respects, which this man had against me.  He would have deserved the title of “the just,” assigned him by Patience, had not a habit of distrust interfered with his first impulses.  The persecutions of which he had so long been the object had developed in him this instinctive feeling of fear, which remained with him all his life, and made trust in others always very difficult to him, though all the more flattering and touching perhaps when he accorded it.  Since then I have observed this characteristic in many worthy priests.  They generally have the spirit of charity, but not the feeling of friendship.