Upon the threshold of the parsonage, Bibiaine, the old housekeeper, was standing.  She knew who these guests must be, for the cure’s servants always know what is going on.

“Monsieur has not yet returned from church,” she said, in response to the duke’s inquiry; “but if the gentlemen wish to wait, it will not be long before he comes, for the poor, dear man has not breakfasted yet.”

“Let us go in,” the duke said to his son.  And guided by the housekeeper, they entered a sort of drawing-room, where the table was spread.

M. de Sairmeuse took an inventory of the apartment in a single glance.  The habits of a house reveal those of its master.  This was clean, poor, and bare.  The walls were whitewashed; a dozen chairs composed the entire furniture; upon the table, laid with monastic simplicity, were only tin dishes.

This was either the abode of an ambitious man or a saint.

“Will these gentlemen take any refreshments?” inquired Bibiaine.

“Upon my word,” replied Martial, “I must confess that the drive has whetted my appetite amazingly.”

“Blessed Jesus!” exclaimed the old housekeeper, in evident despair.  “What am I to do?  I, who have nothing!  That is to say—­yes—­I have an old hen left in the coop.  Give me time to wring its neck, to pick it, and clean it——­”

She paused to listen, and they heard a step in the passage.

“Ah!” she exclaimed, “here is Monsieur le Cure now!”

The son of a poor farmer in the environs of Montaignac, he owed his Latin and tonsure to the privations of his family.

Tall, angular, and solemn, he was as cold and impassive as the stones of his church.

By what immense efforts of will, at the cost of what torture, had he made himself what he was?  One could form some idea of the terrible restraint to which he had subjected himself by looking at his eyes, which occasionally emitted the lightnings of an impassioned soul.

Was he old or young?  The most subtle observer would have hesitated to say on seeing this pallid and emaciated face, cut in two by an immense nose—­a real eagle’s beak—­as thin as the edge of a razor.

He wore a white cassock, which had been patched and darned in numberless places, but which was a marvel of cleanliness, and which hung about his tall, attenuated body like the sails of a disabled vessel.

He was known as the Abbe Midon.

At the sight of the two strangers seated in his drawing-room, he manifested some slight surprise.

The carriage standing before the door had announced the presence of a visitor; but he had expected to find one of his parishioners.

No one had warned him or the sacristan, and he was wondering with whom he had to deal, and what they desired of him.

Mechanically, he turned to Bibiaine, but the old servant had taken flight.

The duke understood his host’s astonishment.