“That singular apparition cheered me.  She undoubtedly was my neighbor, the English lady of mature age of whom our hostess had spoken.

“I did not see her again that day.  The next day, when I had settled myself to commence painting at the end of that beautiful valley which you know and which extends as far as Etretat, I perceived, on lifting my eyes suddenly, something singular standing on the crest of the cliff, one might have said a pole decked out with flags.  It was she.  On seeing me, she suddenly disappeared.  I reentered the house at midday for lunch and took my seat at the general table, so as to make the acquaintance of this odd character.  But she did not respond to my polite advances, was insensible even to my little attentions.  I poured out water for her persistently, I passed her the dishes with great eagerness.  A slight, almost imperceptible, movement of the head and an English word, murmured so low that I did not understand it, were her only acknowledgments.

“I ceased occupying myself with her, although she had disturbed my thoughts.

“At the end of three days I knew as much about her as did Madame Lecacheur herself.

“She was called Miss Harriet.  Seeking out a secluded village in which to pass the summer, she had been attracted to Benouville some six months before and did not seem disposed to leave it.  She never spoke at table, ate rapidly, reading all the while a small book of the Protestant propaganda.  She gave a copy of it to everybody.  The cure himself had received no less than four copies, conveyed by an urchin to whom she had paid two sous commission.  She said sometimes to our hostess abruptly, without preparing her in the least for the declaration: 

“’I love the Saviour more than all.  I admire him in all creation; I adore him in all nature; I carry him always in my heart.’

“And she would immediately present the old woman with one of her tracts which were destined to convert the universe.

“In, the village she was not liked.  In fact, the schoolmaster having pronounced her an atheist, a kind of stigma attached to her.  The cure, who had been consulted by Madame Lecacheur, responded: 

“’She is a heretic, but God does not wish the death of the sinner, and I believe her to be a person of pure morals.’

“These words, ‘atheist,’ ‘heretic,’ words which no one can precisely define, threw doubts into some minds.  It was asserted, however, that this English woman was rich and that she had passed her life in travelling through every country in the world because her family had cast her off.  Why had her family cast her off?  Because of her impiety, of course!

“She was, in fact, one of those people of exalted principles; one of those opinionated puritans, of which England produces so many; one of those good and insupportable old maids who haunt the tables d’hote of every hotel in Europe, who spoil Italy, poison Switzerland, render the charming cities of the Mediterranean uninhabitable, carry everywhere their fantastic manias their manners of petrified vestals, their indescribable toilets and a certain odor of india-rubber which makes one believe that at night they are slipped into a rubber casing.