"Unawares" (continued 2)

“I have no bonne, monsieur,” she answered as composedly as she could. “In my position I do not expect one.”

It was M. Deshoulières’ turn to colour. He walked up to fat Madame Lemaire, who was standing near, and brought her back with a kind of ceremonious formality. “There has been a mistake about mademoiselle’s servant,” he said, hurriedly; “will you do me the kindness to permit her to remain under your protection?” Then he went a little aside from them, and stood watching the proceedings.

The women looked very grave and determined, only Mme. Mathurine was a little pale. She was the most unpopular of her number among the country people, and a good many of them, without any real suspicion of her honesty, were not sorry to inflict a touch of humiliation. Old Nannon, in her wrath, said openly that she had lined her pockets with the price of the corn, and then accused the boy of bringing short measure. Others, who had not the old woman’s personal interest in the matter, would not venture so far, they shook their heads, and shrugged their shoulders. The majority inclined to the belief that the boy had been tampered with, and had sold the grain before he reached the market; but Mme. Mathurine, who was proud and self-reliant, saw only the shakes and shrugs. She was obliged to appear composed and indifferent, but in her heart a fierce indignation was burning. She had made a little mistake in not having at once called one of the other saleswomen to witness the reality of the short measure, and even to have made a mistake was very bitter to her pride. She folded her arms and looked round upon the faces about her with the air of a queen.

“There is no more to be done, messieurs and mesdames,” she said. “The business is concluded. Monsieur Gohon will communicate with the corporation, if he desires it.”

“And our Jean-Marie?” asked Nannon, pressing up and looking warlike.

Madame Mathurine deigned no other answer than a withering glance. Her companions gathered round her; they made a little compact phalanx and moved towards the doors. Old Nannon followed, dragging her reluctant nephew, and pouring out a torrent of words,—

“I appeal to the commissary,—to the mayor,” she cried, thrusting herself before Mme. Mathurine. M. Deshoulières began to think the old woman’s rage would lead her to a personal attack upon her enemy, and the other saleswomen thought so too, for the eldest of the group, perceiving him, came quickly up and said in a low voice,—

“Pray, monsieur, use your influence to prevent scandal.”

“Nannon,” he said, sternly, “this must end. You have been allowed too much licence already. So much as relates to the affair here is finished; for the rest, Jean-Marie and his master must settle it between them.”

There was a little murmur of applause among the town-people, an honest admiration for their doctor made his opinion as decisive as the maire’s. Nannon shook her head, and drew herself up with a certain pathetic dignity.

“That is easy to say, monsieur,” she answered, her poor old voice tremulous with indignation. “We all know the quantity was just when the corn left the farm, and if the poor boy goes back with this story, it does not require to be a witch to know that my sister will have him on her hands again.”

Thérèse, standing rather behind fat Madame Lemaire, and her basket, was in a little flame of excitement. Her colour rose, her eye sparkled, one or two people near looked at her with curiosity and admiration, but she did not remark it. She liked the old woman with her ugly, half comical, half-pathetic face, and wanted her to be proved in the right; M. Deshoulières, who found himself, to his amusement, constituted a kind of judge, little knew what a warm partisan of the accused was watching him from the background with flashing eyes. He asked a few necessary questions; the sacks had been brought tied and marked as usual, the bill of the quantity delivered to Madame Mathurine, Jean-Marie stoutly denied any encounters on the road. M. Deshoulières felt convinced that he denied too much; old Nannon, on the contrary, was in triumph.

“Now monsieur sees that he is telling the truth!”

“That is just what he is not doing,” said the doctor severely. “If he can give no other account of himself, and Madame Mathurine does not call in the commissary of police, it will be Gohon’s duty to do so. As for you, Nannon, you should know better than to encourage him.”

“Oh, monsieur!”

Nannon’s face was tragic. Thérèse was altogether on her side against M. Deshoulières’ harshness. No one can be so unjust as a girl when her feelings are brought into the battle-field; Nannon’s young champion would have ridden pell-mell over right and wrong, laws and principles, Madame Mathurine, and the whole corporation, in defence of this old woman with her foolish, unreasonable love. She detested M. Deshoulières when he said:—

“It is true. Listen to me, Jean-Marie. You shall have one chance more. Whom did you see on your road here to-day?”

Something came out which sounded like “the Simons and Michault.” There was a murmur of indignation.

“Imagine the little wicked one vowing that he met no one!”

“Did monsieur conceive the road to be a desert?” said Nannon, drawing herself up defiantly.

“Where was Michault?” asked M. Deshoulières, disregarding.

“He was at Cottereau’s.”

Between obstinacy and fright it was difficult to extract the truth from the unhappy Jean-Marie, but the doctor’s questions at last elicited the facts that he had been persuaded to enter the Cottereaus’ cottage—one of those miserable huts which abound in the department—under pretence of receiving a commission from Mère Cottereau to buy some cotton yarn for her in Charville. Then it came out that Michault, who was sitting there, went away, the others gave the boy cider, and detained him for some time, while no doubt the theft was committed. The Cottereaus’ character was well-known in the district; it all seemed clear enough now that Jean-Marie acknowledged this much, and M. Deshoulières did not think the boy knew more. Notice would be given to the police, but it was not likely he would suffer from them. M. Deshoulières bestowed a few sharp words upon him, meaning all the while to say something to Gohon on his behalf. This neither Nannon nor Thérèse guessed; the old woman’s foolish fondness provoked him, and he would not let her see that he had any compassion for the culprit.

The crowd poured out into the sunshine again, rich colours flashed about here and there, carts were laden and driven off with great creaks and rumblings. People were tolerably satisfied with the ending of the affair, which left them one object for abuse in the treacherous Michault. The saleswomen congratulated themselves, only Madame Mathurine walked away alone with an angry indignant heart. It was nothing to her that her integrity had been proved, since it had once been doubted. She was not even grateful to M. Deshoulières.

Poor Max! He had done a good morning’s work, perhaps warded off a serious evil; if they had been men with whom he had to deal, his good deeds would have held a chance of appreciation. Here, on the contrary, old Nannon walked off, still erect and defiant; Madame Mathurine was unthankful; Thérèse called him unmerciful. Before he had time to look for her she had wished adieu to Madame Lemaire, who wanted to keep her, and had slipped out with the crowd. M. Deshoulières, coming to where he had left her, found her gone. He was obliged to explain something of her story to Madame Lemaire, who, with all her solidity, was curious and a little romantic.

“There must be but one conclusion,” she said, laughing good-humouredly when he had finished; “monsieur should marry her.”

He started with undisguised amazement. “I!”

“But yes. Is it so wonderful?”

“I! What could have put that into your head?”

Madame Lemaire nodded wisely. “Perhaps it was her pretty face, perhaps it was chance. Who knows? After all it is of monsieur we are talking.”

M. Deshoulières shook his head, and went away smiling, yet with a half-hidden sadness in his tone. “You must look for romances elsewhere, madame,” he said. “I have no heart to spare except for my patients.”

No one ever entirely realises how much his life is moulded by what we call trifles. We do not want a lion in our path to turn us, a straw will do it as effectually. It is only an indifferent word occasionally that opens the floodgates and lets the torrent in. A look affects a life; perhaps such insignificant instruments are chosen to keep us humble. Looking back, when we have gone further on our journey, we dimly understand it, but at the time the influences seem too small to be admitted. Yet it is the teaching of all creation, whether physical or spiritual. In the drop of water, in the blade of grass, in the moment of time, in the thought of our heart, God teaches us the immensity of little things.

Chapter Seven.

“Experience, like a pale musician, holds A dulcimer of patience in his hands.” E.B. Browning.

Max Deshoulières did not smile any more after he went away from Madame Lemaire, but he never forgot her little speech. It seemed to set all sorts of unknown strings vibrating, the words kept echoing back from his heart; things that had nothing to do with his life, as he fancied, floated up before him: children’s faces like angels’, the touch of tiny hands, sweet womanly voices, wistful grey eyes, all these strange uncalled-for visions haunted him; he could not have driven them away if he had wished it. If he had been an idle man, with time to spend in dreaming, he might have understood their meaning sooner; as it was, he wondered a little, and then flung himself heart and soul into a battle with some grim disease in a squalid room where there was the dirt without the picturesqueness of Charville. Almost unconsciously this man’s life had been one noble self-sacrifice. He seemed to use his great strength of will in setting aside all selfish aims. He worked with a single-mindedness out of which had grown a strange simplicity and tenderness. Thérèse, with all her hopefulness, had not his strong faith. If he had been more accustomed to make pictures, in which he formed a central figure, Madame Lemaire’s words might not have stirred him as they did. A hand had swept the strings, would the tones it set vibrating grow and swell into grand, beautiful chords of sweet harmony, or die away in a sad, sorrowful wail?

That little fact of seeing Thérèse alone among all those people, vexed him with the Roulleaus. He went there the next morning. Thérèse saw him on the stairs, and fled back, foolish child, to her room, with a cold fear in her heart of what he might be come to propose. She had remarked his displeasure of the day before, and who knew what might grow out of it? Madame Roulleau used to invent little speeches of M. Deshoulières, which poor Thérèse had no reason for disbelieving; she felt them hard,—cruel. Her heart resented this trampling out of the bright things of life which they told her he was trying to force upon her. She liked sunshine, flowers, love,—liked them, and wanted them for herself with an impatience that would not so much as endure the thought of life without them. One feels a compassion for such natures, knowing how hard the lessons of time must prove to them, and yet it may be that their very buoyancy helps them to float over the stormy waves. It was so with Thérèse at present. She felt more confident of Fabien’s love now than she had done when he was near her and talking about it; she never doubted that he would return; she could turn her dingy little room in Rue St. Servan into a veritable palace with her bright thoughts of the future. There was a little precious likeness of Fabien which she would take out and talk to whenever Madame Roulleau was more than usually tyrannical. With so much sunshine before her, she could bear any thing so long as that terrible guardian would leave her alone.

Downstairs the terrible guardian was expressing his opinion to Madame Roulleau; for little Roulleau kept out of the way on these occasions, and madame preferred it, since she was always afraid that his cowardice might betray them. M. Deshoulières was very grave, very determined: he had left all these minor things to be arranged by Madame Roulleau, he said; but she must quite understand that mademoiselle must have every thing that was right and convenable. As he spoke he looked round, and wondered if she were happy there. His own tastes were very plain, but he was not sure whether a young girl would not require something brighter than this barren abode; and madame, who watched him like a cat, read his looks without difficulty, and was very judicious in her answers. She did not say too much, but she implied that mademoiselle preferred the freedom and unconventionality of their family life to permitting changes to be made on her account. “She has had enough of luxury, monsieur,” she said. Thérèse upstairs, shivering and trembling over that convent fancy, did not know how these two were concerned with the web and woof of her life: madame, with her covetous hands turning and twisting it to suit her purpose; Max, with his great tender heart and his quick abrupt ways, wanting to protect the little solitary figure, whose solitariness and helplessness among the crowd the day before had touched him with pity. “Poor child!” he said softly in his heart. He was not quite sure of the value of madame’s professions. He made up his mind to question Thérèse herself at the first opportunity.

When he went away it was with the understanding that Thérèse should take no more solitary walks. Madame would have gladly escaped the concession, but it was not possible; and her busy thoughts went off at once to the question of how the affair could be managed, at least cost; or how it might be balanced by extracting further work from the girl. She went up to her with a gloomy depressed face which terrified Thérèse when she opened the door.

“Is there any news? What has he said?” she asked, quickly.

“This all comes from your imprudence in loitering at the market yesterday, mademoiselle. M. Deshoulières is highly displeased,—requests that we will provide an attendant for you. An attendant!” repeated madame, with a little hoot of scorn. “When my husband toils and toils, and I pinch and pinch; and then we are reproached because you do not walk about as if you were the daughter of M. le Préfet! I saw beforehand that it would not do. You must seek another domicile, mademoiselle.”

“You will send me away!” said poor Thérèse, turning pale. “But where can I go?”

Madame threw out her hands.

“That is for M. Deshoulières to decide. There is always the convent. You will be safe enough behind the grille,” she added, with a mocking laugh.

Thérèse was very ignorant, and had no idea what unlimited powers M. Deshoulières’ guardianship might not convey. The tears gathered in her eyes, she almost flung herself at madame’s feet.

“No, no, no, madame,” she implored, “do not send me away. I am not good enough for that life. I cannot give up Fabien. Do not send me away!”

It was her whole heart crying out, but madame looked and listened coldly.

“My children must not be sacrificed,” she said, folding her hands inexorably.

There was a little silence. Madame glanced at Thérèse from under her eyelids; the girl had recovered herself, and was standing motionless, her eyes on the ground, and a red flush on her cheek. Either her pride had come to her aid, or she was making a desperate resolution. Madame thought it was time to waver.

“If, indeed—” she said, slowly. “But no.”

“If what, madame?”

“You have had a grand education, without doubt, mademoiselle?”

“I used to learn a great deal. I do not know that it was any good,” said Thérèse, wearily.

“I am in treaty with an admirable instructress for Octavie and Adolphe. It would be an infinite loss to them: still—”

“Do you mean that I could teach them?” said Thérèse, brightening up and looking delighted.

“It is almost wrong of me,” madame declared, sighing. “I do not know what my husband will say to my weakness.”

Thérèse cried out, gratefully, that she should never repent it. Her buoyant spirit reasserted itself; she drew a long breath of relief as she thought of Monsieur Deshoulières and the convent on one side, Fabien and happiness on the other, with Madame Roulleau, in her linen jacket, standing as arbitrix between them. If there had been a dozen Octavies and Adolphes she must have embraced her, as she did. Such joy did not mollify madame.

“Who is to promenade with you?” she asked, crossly. “It must not be a fine lady, to ruin us in wages.”

“I have thought of some one,” Thérèse cried out with eagerness. “Let it be old Nannon; she is very poor, and will be glad to get a little.”

“That old creature!” exclaimed madame, who was secretly pleased, but felt it necessary to make a favour of every concession.

Perhaps Thérèse also was actuated by the spirit of contradiction towards the unconscious offender, M. Deshoulières. “I should like her better than any one else,” she said.

Madame went away well satisfied with her own tactics. By a little skilful management she could make these two play against each other. Thérèse was already thoroughly prejudiced against her guardian, and should he be displeased by the choice of Nannon, he would learn that it arose from the girl’s own wilfulness. It was far more likely that, having once spoken on the subject, he would not trouble himself about it again. Madame Roulleau was a clever woman, but she knew nothing of those new sounds which were beginning to make themselves heard in his heart.

Before she left the room she told Thérèse to go to old Nannon’s, and desire her to come to Rue St. Servan. M. Deshoulières was gone to Epernon, and safe out of the way. Thérèse, who all the morning had been looking longingly at the soft sunshine and the cool delicate clouds which sailed lazily across her great expanse of sky, was glad to get out into the brightness. It was one of those exquisite days of broken light in which quaint old Charville seemed full of pictures and of memories; a capricious sky, a sweet tender glow upon the stones, here and there a keen shaft of sun-ray, here and there a deep grave shadow—contrasts, but not contradictions. Later in the day there was to be a mass in the Cathedral for the children who were just confirmed; the little white-veiled figures were flitting about in all directions. Thérèse stood and watched two who came along a narrow, dark street, and under a grey archway; two black-robed sisters in great white flapping caps, stretching out on either side like wings, held their hands. “Soyez tranquille, mon enfant,” one of them was saying, in her calm, hushed voice, as they passed Thérèse; it sounded almost like a benediction, as they all went quietly along under the Cathedral and the praying statues. Tears rushed into the girl’s eyes; she put out her hands with a sort of vague beseeching for some such kindly words, but no one saw or understood the gesture. The figures went away into the light, Thérèse remained sadly on the broad steps looking after them. With these solemn walls rising heavenwards; with these serene, mute statues—angels and their harps, saints with folded hands, crowned kings and queens, prophets, apostles, martyrs—standing in majestic unbroken calm, it seemed as if, after all, peace might be the happiness of life. Was it to be found in such an existence as these quiet women had chosen? Would it not be better for her to yield and do as they had done? She shivered at the thought. A little white butterfly fluttered down on the hand of one of the crowned figures, and rose again, as if the touch chilled it. “It is like me,” Thérèse thought bitterly; “I am not good enough for that cold, saintly life.” Poor child! There were all kinds of new thoughts wrestling within her; perhaps, among them, breathed the faint distant echo of an eternal truth. Neither in the cloister nor in the world will peace or happiness, or whatever we may call the highest earthly bliss, come to those who seek them selfishly. From behind some sad figure, in companionship where we least expect them, they may step forth smiling. But they are divine gifts; and He who gives has not made them the end of our endeavour, the goal of our race.

The girl dashed away her tears, and came slowly down from the steps; she would have gone into the Cathedral, but the doors of the north portal were not open, and she went mechanically along the streets towards Nannon’s. The air was soft and healing, every thing gentle, dewy, and full of sweet beauty. Rain had fallen in the night, the broad fans of the horse-chestnut leaves still sheltered little depths out of which gleamed patches of wet, and diamond beads glistened on the grass, which feathered out here and there from a crevice in some old cracked wall. Presently Thérèse, who was not much thinking about her errand, caught the sound of a voice which recalled it. There was an old arched stone doorway lying in grey shade. Worn steps led up to it, and through the open space you could see a little sunny court, a stone fountain catching warm yellow tints, vines clambering round the edge, an old woman in a blue stuff gown and white cap leaning against it and chattering merrily. There must have been other invisible figures to whom Nannon was holding forth, for every now and then there came a little chorus of shrill laughter. The vine-leaves rustled, their shadows danced in the sunlight; Thérèse stood at the doorway and looked at it all for a moment before she called,—

“Nannon!”

“Holy Virgin!” exclaimed the old woman, starting, “it is Mademoiselle Veuillot!”

Thérèse’s name still excited interest in Charville; two or three heads peered out from the framework of the doorway.

“She looks thinner already, poor thing!” said one girl presently, in a compassionate whisper.

“No wonder, Suzette, if Madame Roulleau provides her food.”

“But what becomes of all that money?”

“Who knows! Monsieur le Docteur is a good man, without doubt, but such a sum is a sore temptation when one has but to help one’s self.”

“That is not possible,” said an old man, speaking in a thin cracked voice, and striking his stick on the ground. “The law provides that no med—”

“Bah, bah, Père André, the law may provide, but we all know that the rich snap their fingers at the law. Henri, little wicked one, be quiet. Well, Nannon, what did mademoiselle want?”

“Nannon is to be mademoiselle’s bonne!” cried the young girl, who had been the first to extract the information.

“Nannon! mademoiselle’s bonne!”

The old woman laughed as heartily as the others, her brown, grotesque face wrinkling into innumerable lines. “It is true, nevertheless, my children,” she said. “See what comes when least one expects it! M. Deshoulières says she is not to walk about alone; figure to yourself her choosing me! If it had been Suzette now—but no, look to yourself, Suzette; after this you will be having me for a rival with Pierre and Jacques.”

The girl laughed, pouted, and twisted a wet vine-branch round little Henri’s head. “Is it all settled, Mère Nannon?”

“There is Madame Roulleau to be seen.”

“And she is a woman!” said old André, casting out his hands, and speaking in his poor thin voice. All the group seemed to agree in snubbing old André.

“What of that? She will not eat me,” said Nannon, holding up her apron to shade her from the sun.

“That is true,” assented Henri’s mother. “But you will need to look out for the sous.”

“She will hold them tight; but some must creep out of her fingers,” Nannon said, nodding cheerfully; “and if M. Deshoulières drives that unfortunate boy out of his place, I shall say that the saints have sent us all a recompense. That is what they do sometimes, as I will say for them, and when one does not altogether expect it at their hands. And mademoiselle asked for Jean-Marie.”

Thérèse waited quickly away from the little sunshiny vine-covered court set in the framework of its grim old pointed doorway, and went back to the Cathedral, going round this time to the south portal, by which she knew she could find entrance. It lay in the full blaze of sunlight: flying buttresses, open pillars, and enormous gargoyles threw sharp shadows on the warm stone. One of the doors was open: inside lay, as it seemed, a vast chasm of darkness, but out of the midst of it the opposite transept window gleamed like a gorgeous bed of jewels. A great bell tolled solemnly; up the broad steps swept a long procession of the white-veiled children, and sisters in their serge dresses. Thérèse followed them; she found a chair, and tried not to notice the stir and bustle about her. People crowded in until the great Cathedral was almost filled. The service was held outside the choir; the little white multitude stood in the centre: on one side were other children in red dresses and rose-wreaths; all round were throngs of loving or curious spectators—warm lights flashed through the magnificent glass. Presently from high overhead dropped the first sweet notes of the organ, and the young fresh voices swelled up to meet it.

Some of the women were crying. There was something about the service which was inexpressibly touching; the vast sombre ancient church, the childish voices. Thérèse, who had been strangely excited before, almost sobbed as she knelt. Even there her desolation and solitude seemed to wrap her round; she had not so much as any one to pray for, she thought, except Fabien. Her prayer went up, eager and piteous, that Fabien might come and she might be happy.

Chapter Eight.

“Behind this eminence the sun Would drop serenely, long ere day was done; And one who climbed that height, might see again A second setting o’er the fertile plain Beyond the town, and glittering in his beam, Wind far away that poplar-skirted stream.” Archbishop Trench.

Looking back afterwards, it seemed to Thérèse as if that soft July day had been her last day of liberty; Octavie and Adolphe became terrible taskmasters. The weather changed, it grew hot, sultry, oppressive; she used to sit in the stuffy little room at Rue St. Servan and gasp for a breath of fresh air. “Adolphe, must you be all day about your theme?” she would ask, a little too impatiently perhaps; and then Octavie would hold her disagreeable little head in the air and reply, “Mamma does not like you to correct Adolphe, mademoiselle.”

She was not patient at all in these days. She hated the lessons and the eternal mendings, and all the petty humiliations madame visited upon her, enduring them only as alternatives for worse things. There must come a day of escape, she thought; but her hope was beginning to grow restless and feverish. Every morning she got up thinking something must be heard of Fabien that day, and every day the weight in her heart became heavier. She could not understand it. She was still so childish in some things that she thought the good things must come, the hard go away; I think she pictured Fabien as a kind of beautiful fairy prince, at whose appearance Madame Roulleau and Monsieur Deshoulières, and the terrible children, and the great heaps of worn-out clothes, would die away out of her life. She painted her own future in these colours until it seemed absolutely to belong to her. But, although when misgivings of its certainty obtruded themselves, she rebelled against them, I am inclined to think that misgivings came more frequently as the weeks went on.

After all, the mending was not so bad as the teaching. The clothes were a burden, but they could not contradict her or make disagreeable remarks like Octavie, or have Adolphe’s fits of obstinate sulkiness. She was not patient, as I have said, but she might have pleaded a certain amount of excuse when she had but the choice of being called cross by the children or remiss by their mother. Octavie—who was dressed in the extreme of fashion, and had a sallow face, high strongly-marked eyebrows, black eyes, and hair drawn up into a number of little curls at the back of her head—kept a sharp look-out for poor Thérèse’s short-comings. “Mamma does not think Adolphe has improved in his writing;” “Mamma expects that you will see that our rooms are always in order, mademoiselle.” When Thérèse could not smile at these speeches they hurt her terribly.

Old Nannon came to Rue St. Servan, and was duly acknowledged as the girl’s attendant whenever she went out. She and Madame Roulleau had a preliminary skirmish, from which madame retired a little discomfited; for, with all her simplicity, Nannon had no lack of shrewdness. In spite of the spirit of contradiction which prompted it, Thérèse had not made a bad choice. There was a fresh vigorous heart beating in the old woman’s bosom, an unconquerable fidelity, keen humour, clear wit; she liked any thing young and pretty, and felt a great compassion for this girl, who was not only young and pretty, but so friendless. Before a month was over she would have gone through fire and water to serve her. She served her better by the homely words she let drop. Every life has its pathos and its poetry, whether we acknowledge it or not; Nannon, with her hard fare and her weather-beaten face, was like the rest. Her lover had been a soldier, had fallen out of the ranks in a long march, and died of typhus in a hut by the roadside. It was months before she heard of it—months during which she waited, and hungered, and hoped.

“And yet you lived?” asked Thérèse, looking at the brown face in wonder.

“Si fait, si fait,” said Nannon, laughing and showing her white teeth. “If people died of such things, mademoiselle, the world would never go on as it does. And there was my sister to take care of besides; it would have been very selfish to talk about dying.”

This sister and her children seemed all the world to Nannon. It appeared to Thérèse as if the whole burden of their existence fell upon those broad old willing shoulders. Once she had asked what Mère Belot did, and Nannon quite ruffled up at the question.

“If Mademoiselle were a mother she would know that is enough,” she said, reproachfully.

Thérèse could not understand her. Afterwards she found out by some chance that Mère Belot was one of those incapable women who are always taken care of, and toiled for, and shielded. There are poor queen bees as well as rich ones, and her sister brought her as much honey as she could scrape together, and pinched, and struggled, and fought for the children, while Mère Belot sat in the street outside the house and spun a little cotton yarn between her intervals of gossip, and accepted her good things placidly. They came to her quite as a matter of course; and, though it be but a poor little hive, it makes a great difference whether you are the queen or the working bee.

Nannon had taken all the children into her faithful heart, but, perhaps, she loved Jean-Marie the best. He had been a trouble ever since he was born. He had been twice as long as the others in cutting his teeth, had frightened them all out of their wits with croup and small-pox and fevers, had broken his leg, and set the house on fire, and was for ever being dragged out of scrapes by Nannon. So many things happened to him that I believe she looked upon him as a hero at last. He was always making fresh starts on the road to fortune, and trailing back again before a week was over. This last start at Gohon’s farm had carried him quite a long way. He had been there more than a month: Nannon’s pride was excessive; she used to walk out through the waving cornfields, and watch the farm for an hour for the happiness of seeing Jean-Marie bring out the horses or fetch the cows. It was an innocent little triumph very dear to her; and, perhaps, it was no wonder that she felt it hard when M. Deshoulières brought to light that misdemeanour with the Cottereaus and Michault, which threatened to put an end to all her triumphs. She did not know that it was M. Deshoulières also who had gone out to the farm the next day, and asked that the boy might have a longer trial; she accused the doctor of having almost deprived Jean-Marie of his situation; and Thérèse had all her baseless prejudices against him confirmed by the old woman. It was very unfortunate, because she might have escaped from the Roulleau tyranny if Nannon had counselled her to appeal to M. Deshoulières; but since his decision against her boy, there was no harshness of which Nannon did not believe him guilty.

So these two used to sit and talk on the hot, dry evenings, when Thérèse could get away from her labour in the stifling little house. Nannon and she would wander through the quaint old town, down the steep streets, and so to the quiet river, whose murmur fell on her ears like the sound of a comforting voice before she reached it.

She liked those evenings best when the sky was tender primrose colour, and the dusky trees stood up against it in soft, shady, mysterious masses, with strangely bright bars of colour gleaming through them. There were disused fortifications, an old gateway, and a bridge; above these houses jumbled oddly together clambering up the side of the hill. She liked to watch the water slip calmly by, the leaves floating on its surface, the long grasses under the bank breaking it into little brown eddies. There were quiet shadows, shadows always comprehensible, never terrible; shadows which stole gently down to the roots of the willows, by which the river rolled along, catching their reflection on its surface, and then suddenly lit up with a sheet of tremulous golden light. A little rough causeway ran by the waterside, here and there a stunted sapling thrust itself out as though to kiss the stream that moved on regardless; here and there were little wooden standing-places—lavatoires—for the washerwomen, who all day long thumped and gesticulated and chattered shrilly, but in the evening left the river to its own unceasing songs.

It was a very quiet, out-of-the-way little corner. The cornfields stretched far away—great flat plains; a bird might cry in the distance, the church bells clang, a peasant in his blouse go by and wish them good evening; except these signs of life there was very little to disturb them. Nannon thought it triste; but it seemed to bring refreshment to Thérèse, who never before had liked silence and solitude. She was ill at this time, I think; feverish, restless, and sick with hope deferred. She had been waiting for two years, at her age a lifetime. Separation had not before been so cruel as it was now that the great bar between her and Fabien was gone, and only his presence was needed. Perhaps her hopefulness would have sunk altogether under the strain if it had not been for the river and Nannon.

Sitting on a stone by its bank one evening, as I have described their doing, they were startled by seeing a figure coming along the narrow causeway towards them. The sun had set behind the upper town; they were too much under the hill to see the houses or the Cathedral spires, but the rich autumnal sunset lingered in the sky, crimson patches and dark purples on a background of tawny gold; there was a soft, breezy rustle in the air. The figure came out of dusky shadows along the causeway, and it startled Thérèse, because she saw at once it was not one of the blue-shirted labourers, who, at rare intervals, came back into the town by that path. When it drew nearer she recognised M. Deshoulières. He had been detained at a village, which lay not far from Charville, where a little child had been ill. That afternoon it had died, and M. Deshoulières, who loved little children, was coming home touched and softened. He had chosen this path, perhaps, because, although he did not think about it in his heart, the river and the long grasses, and the tremulous golden light, had their attractions also for him. He was looking at the water, and when he suddenly came upon these two figures sitting quietly there in the midst of the solitude, he could not refrain from an exclamation of surprise.

“Mademoiselle Veuillot!” he said.

Thérèse did not know what to answer. Neither of them had expected to meet the other here. She was half angry, half-frightened, lest this innocent little enjoyment of hers should also be pronounced unfitting. Both she and Nannon had risen, Nannon standing with her arms crossed defiantly.

“We came here because it is so cool and so pleasant,” said Thérèse, looking beseechingly at her enemy. Surely the river might be spared to her! “Is it late?” she said, suddenly conscious of the depth of the shadows.

“A little,” he answered dryly. In his heart he was wondering with a little amusement at her fancy for solitude, and at the companionship in which he found her. It seemed to him as if the silence and the shadows were more fitting for a grave man like himself than for such a child as Thérèse. In the waning light, in her black dress, she looked thin and pale. “This is not a place for you to sit in so late. There is mist from the river,” he said. “You should keep on the higher ground.”

“We do not often stay so late, do we, Nannon?” said Thérèse, appealingly; “and it is so hot in the town.”

Nannon, who represented the opposition to M. Deshoulières, was nothing loath to enter upon the field. “There is no harm in the river,” she said, with decision. “Monsieur would know that if he had lived in the town as long as I have. If mademoiselle prefers the band and a little distraction, she can always find it above there; but if she likes better to come and sit in this seclusion, there is nothing to prevent it. White mist does no one any hurt. It is the stirring up which brings the fever,” added Nannon, with a spiteful allusion to some sanitary measures of M. Deshoulières.

“You are coming back now?” he said, addressing himself to Thérèse, without taking any notice of Nannon’s speech.

Long afterwards she wondered at the clearness with which she remembered every detail of that walk, the little rough, untidy path, the rose-bushes growing out of the grey wall, the dog that stood and barked, then the houses and the steep hot streets. At the time she scarcely noticed them, but afterwards they came back. M. Deshoulières was grave and preoccupied; but once, when Nannon had lingered behind to speak to some friend, he turned round and said, with a sudden smile and a twinkle in his blue eyes,—

“So that is the companion you have chosen, mademoiselle?”

Thérèse murmured something, feeling horribly guilty: she wondered whether he would guess that her sympathy with Nannon began in the market.

“She is not a bad old woman,” went on the unconscious Max. “She lets herself be eaten up by that sister of hers, and she does not always tell the truth; but she will be honest and faithful.”

“I am sure she is faithful,” said Thérèse, forcing herself to say something, and thinking of Fabien.

M. Deshoulières looked up quickly. “Is faithfulness a favourite virtue of yours, mademoiselle?”

“It seems to me that it is the anchor of life,” answered the girl in a low voice.

He looked at her again with a little wonder. There was something almost passionate in the tone with which she spoke those few words. His next question came out abruptly.

“Does your present residence suit you? Are you sure that you would not prefer a change?” Thérèse thought of the convent, and turned sick. “I do not wish for any change,” she said, hurriedly.

“You are content to remain where you are?”

It was a strange sort of contentment, Thérèse thought, with a quick flash of self-pity; but the other place of refuge that was open to her would be unbearable. She said yes to his question, and then despised herself for the falseness of her answer. “Every place must be a little sad to me, just now, monsieur,” she went on, “for I belong to no one. But I am glad to stay at Mme. Roulleau’s.”

He did not answer. She thought, perhaps, he had not listened to her pathetic little explanation; she did not know that it had gone straight for his heart. The pity that he had felt once or twice before became more intense, more personal. Perhaps the time and circumstances helped the feeling: the evening was soft, quiet, almost solemn; all his sympathies had been called out that day by the little child’s deathbed. “Let me go to sleep,” the little tired voice had said; there was no more pain afterwards, except in the hearts of the watchers. The words came back to him continually, with a vision of the tiny, wasted, flushed face; any appeal would have touched him in his present mood, and Thérèse seemed only an older child, with no one, as she said, to care for her. He walked on, thinking silently, and she made a great effort to put a question into words.

“Have you heard nothing yet of Monsieur Saint-Martin?”

“Nothing, nothing. One would have supposed that by this time a letter—a message, at least—might have reached Ardron. It would seem that the estrangement was serious. Why do people take so much trouble to forge their own unhappiness, Mademoiselle Veuillot?”

There are many ways of doing that work, innocent, unconscious ways, sometimes. At this very moment, M. Deshoulières, with his big, manly, pitiful heart, was laying it open and making it ready for the sharp red-hot thrusts that came afterwards. We do the same, all of us, often. We grind the weapons that are to wound us. But, thank God, the weapons are not always evil, and such leave no poison in the wound.

“Mademoiselle, did you hear the clock strike?” said Nannon, bustling up. “We must make haste, the days grow so short, and the virgins up there do not carry their lamps lit.”

“Up there” was the cathedral porch, where the parable is graven, and the ten stand in their changeless attitudes of despair or bliss. M. Deshoulières, Thérèse, and Nannon passed under them. It was not so dark as Nannon represented, but a sweet duskiness was veiling all the bright tints; people sat outside their houses laughing and chattering with their children; a few lights began to appear; in the distance was heard the indistinct roll of a drum. Rue St. Servan looked gloomy when they turned into it: the light always left it early. When M. Deshoulières wished Thérèse good evening, he said, with a smile which she did not see,—“Do not stay so long by the river another evening, mademoiselle.”

Chapter Nine.

“A stirring of the heart, a quickening keen Of sight and hearing to the delicate Beauty and music of an altered world; ...That mysterious light, Which doth reveal and yet transform; which give Destiny, sorrow, youth, and death, and life, Intenser meaning; in disquieting Lifts up; a shining light: men call it love.” Jean Ingelow.

M. Deshoulières went slowly away from the Roulleaus towards his own house. The café at the corner of the little Place was brilliantly lit; outside, between great tubs of evergreens and climbing daturas, men were sitting, smoking, drinking coffee, or mixing horrible little decoctions of absinthe. Instead of joining the group, and reading his evening budget of the Patrie, the Gaulois, or the Organe du Département, M. Deshoulières strolled away to one of the deserted seats under the trees, where there was not sufficient cheerful light or sound for the attraction of idlers, and he was not likely to be recognised. There was his own house opposite, dark and dreary-looking. Some of the windows round were open, light streamed out, figures sat in the balconies; one woman he noticed particularly in a white shining dress, with a child clambering on her knee; he could hear happy voices, laughter and singing. His own house looked like a dark patch in the middle of it all: presently, one little feeble light passed a window, disappeared, shone out again in the story above. “Veuve Angelin is going upstairs,” commented M. Deshoulières. For the first time a feeling of dissatisfaction took shape in his mind. Why had he no one better than Veuve Angelin to welcome him? Why should his house be unlike those others? It had a balcony,—he had hardly noticed it before,—why might not a lady, in a white shining dress, sit there in a little glow of warm light? He half closed his eyes, and fancied her: a slight figure, dark brown hair, lying lightly on her forehead; grey eyes, with the beseeching look he had more than once remarked. “Every place must be a little sad to me, for I belong to no one.” His shining lady would say no such pathetic words. Ah, M. Deshoulières, you opened your heart to Pity, and another visitant slipped in unawares!

It seemed but a little while to himself that he sat there under the trees, yet, when at last he roused himself to move, half the lights had vanished, only two or three excited politicians remained before the café: there was a September chill in the air in spite of the day’s heat. Max was thoroughly ashamed, on glancing round, to realise the time he had wasted. It was too late to light another cigar; he got up, shook himself, and walked across to his house. A little primitive light—just a wick in a glass of oil—burnt feebly within the entrance; at the head of the stairs stood Veuve Angelin, in an injured frame of mind.

“So monsieur has come at last,” she said sharply, “and all the world has been seeking him for the last two hours. There has been a message from the Evêché: they are all in commotion: Monseigneur may be dead by this time, or recovered, which would be almost as bad, considering that that miserable little Monsieur Pinot would have the credit of it.”

“What was the message?” asked M. Deshoulières, calmly.

“Monseigneur felt himself more feeble this evening, and desired monsieur to come without delay. If they found you absent, M. Jean was to fetch M. Pinot at once. I got him to talk about that affair at Minguard, which kept him a little; but it is too horrible to think of that other creature’s triumph. If monsieur were to walk very fast?”

“There is no occasion for such an exertion, Marie, since M. Pinot is there. Monseigneur is quite safe with him.”

“Monsieur will not go?”

“Oh, yes, I shall go. Only I should like my coffee first. And, stay, have there been no other messages?”

“Only one from that old André. The boy is worse—or so they said.”

“Why did you not say so?” demanded M. Deshoulières, sternly. “Give me my coat at once.”

“But, monsieur, the coffee—”

“Give me my coat.”

“Monseigneur—”

But the doctor was clattering down the stairs.

“What a man!” muttered Veuve Angelin, throwing up her hands. “He is no more fit to manage his affairs than a child—an idiot! I do what I can, but he overthrows every thing. Monseigneur sending for him, that wretched little Pinot longing to jump into his shoes, and in the face of it all he first orders coffee, and then rushes off to that old misery André, from whom he will never get a sou. It upsets my nerves to think of it. Monseigneur at the Evêché, and that boy of old André’s in a hole of a place, both wanting him, and he must choose to go to the boy! And M. Jean was so agreeable! It is true, as he says, that I have a great deal of solitude to endure here, but one could bear a great deal if those one lived with were only reasonable. And there will be that cook of M. Pinot’s giving herself airs at the market to-morrow! I will take care to let them know whom M. Jean came to first—but monsieur never arrives at taking his position, do what I will.”

It was midnight before M. Deshoulières reached the Evêché; the Bishop’s nephew received him freezingly.

“It is some hours since we sent to request your services, monsieur.”

“When I reached my house, Monsieur l’Abbé, I understood that your servant had wisely gone on to M. Pinot, and knowing Monseigneur to be in good hands I obeyed a pressing summons to a poor boy whose state gives me great uneasiness.” M. l’Abbé stared. Here was the chief pastor of the flock lying upstairs, sick and weary, and this doctor—occupying himself with attendance upon one of the very poorest of the sheep. He answered stiffly:—

“M. Pinot is at this moment with the Bishop.” The doctor bowed.

“He appears to understand the case, and I do not think we need deprive your other patients of your time.”

“Under those circumstances, as I am very sleepy, M. l’Abbé,” said M. Deshoulières cheerfully, “I shall go and indulge myself with great satisfaction. With Monseigneur’s symptoms, you may have perfect confidence in Monsieur Pinot.”

He left the Abbé speechless, ran down the broad oaken stairs, and through a yard and a garden out into the Place Notre Dame. It was a calm, beautiful night, overhead the stars were shining, before him rose the Cathedral in silent, grave repose. “This night’s work will be the making of Pinot,” he thought to himself, as he walked under the dark houses. “All Charville will know of it to-morrow. He is a painstaking little man, without originality of conception, but able to benefit by what he sees practised, which is more than one can say of all one’s trade. I am glad he should have this lift, though I shall miss the old Bishop’s good-natured face.”

The next morning, when M. Deshoulières went out early, Veuve Angelin devoutly hoped he was going to the Evêché. At his déjeûner, however, she waited upon him with so lugubrious a face, that he felt himself obliged to inquire into the cause.

“It cannot be true. Monsieur would not look so unconcerned. Otherwise it is reported that monsieur was refused permission to see Monseigneur last evening.”

“It is quite true, Marie. A terrible fact.”

“And that creature, Victoire, was boasting through the market that her master was in attendance all night.”

“I am sorry to hear that Monseigneur required it.”

“But, monsieur—”

“Well?”

“You are ruined!”

“I? Not at all.”

“Monsieur Pinot at the Evêché!”

“We will get him an introduction to the Préfecture.”

“Monsieur should not jest. I shall never be able to hold up my head at the market again.”

“That is a very lamentable consequence. At all events, Marie, you will have the comfort of reflecting that a Bishop is at the bottom of your misfortunes.”

M. Deshoulières sat smiling and unimpressed; Veuve Angelin was almost crying over the mortifications she foresaw to be in store for her, when a step sounded on the stairs. She went out and came running in again, radiant.

“From the Evêché,” she said, giving him a note.

M. Deshoulières, who was human, could not himself resist a little twinkle of satisfaction as he read. The Abbé, after making his compliments to M. Deshoulières, begged him to call at the Evêché as soon as his other engagements would admit. The note was pointedly civil.

“Poor man!” thought the doctor, folding it up with a smile. “Such a concession ought to serve for penance.”

“Monsieur is sent for?” asked Veuve Angelin, eagerly.

“I am going to assist M. Pinot,” answered the doctor, gravely. “Don’t you know, Marie, that a great man has generally a second in command? After this, if Madame Victoire usurps the honours of the market, you may decidedly claim the privilege of following close behind.”

Veuve Angelin, who could not understand a joke, was left not altogether at ease. “If monsieur loses his standing in the place, I shall quit,” she said to herself. “To have that woman setting herself before us would be unbearable. To assist M. Pinot! The Bishop would have more proper feeling than to allow such a thing to be named. M. Pinot!”

M. Deshoulières meanwhile reached the iron gates, passed under the trees, from which brown leaves were dropping, and rang the bell of the Evêché. M. Jean himself opened the door, the Abbé was not to be seen. The doctor went upstairs into a large lofty apartment, wainscoted with dark wood. Logs were burning in an open fireplace; in a great cushioned chair drawn close to it, sat an old kindly-faced man, with a little black skull-cap covering his white locks, and his withered hands stretched out on the arms of his chair.

“So you are come this time, Monsieur Deshoulières,” he said, with a little nod of welcome.

“Monseigneur,” said the doctor, respectfully, “it was no intentional neglect on my part. I consider it my duty to attend first to the most pressing cases, and I was well aware that Monsieur Pinot would prove efficient.”

“Oh, I know all about it. It was my nephew. Monsieur l’Abbé does not infrequently make a—hem—he makes mistakes,” said the Bishop, pulling himself up. “And now, my good M. Deshoulières, before we say any thing more, be kind enough to tell me how is the boy, and what is his name?”

“He is a little better,” said the doctor, smiling, “and he is the grandson of old André Triquet, the wood-cutter.”

“What does he most want?”

“Every thing.”

“Except a good doctor,” said Monseigneur, with a kind smile. “There he has the advantage of us all. Well, I must see to my rival’s comforts. And now for my next question. I do not receive much definite information: is it your opinion that the town is in a healthy condition?”

M. Deshoulières shook his head. “There have been fever cases clinging to it all the summer.”

“But they say that the cold weather will cure them.”

“The cold weather may undoubtedly check the results, but if the cause remains, I venture, Monseigneur, to predict a fierce epidemic for next year.”

“And the cause is—?”

“The blindness or the wickedness of our authorities.”

“You speak strongly, Monsieur Deshoulières.”

“You would do the same, Monseigneur, if your work lay where mine does.”

There was a little silence: the doctor became aware of the unintentional irony of his words; the Bishop also had recognised it, for he moved his head restlessly upon the cushion. Presently he stretched out his hand to the doctor and said with simple dignity,—

“I am an old man. I cannot give the personal help this great town requires at my hands. Strength and opportunity are no longer mine, but at least I can pronounce the blessing of God upon those who, like you, are using them for His poor.” There was something of grandeur in his face and attitude; M. Deshoulières, much moved, rose up and stood silent. He had never before realised in the Bishop’s character the force which lay hidden behind an easy good-nature. At this moment a bell rang.

“That is Monsieur Pinot,” said the Bishop, relapsing into a smile. “I shall not see him.”

“Monseigneur, all this time we have not spoken of yourself.”

“I did not send to you for that purpose. I believe your friend is doing me no harm, and it would give him so much satisfaction to cure me that I must let him have the chance for once. But if he fails, I bargain that André Triquet’s grandson and I change doctors.”

“Nevertheless, I shall put a few questions,” said M. Deshoulières.

When these were over, the Bishop, who liked a little gossip, detained him.

“Is your strange trusteeship still going on?”

“As it was.”

“And you have received no tidings of the young man? It is peculiar, very peculiar. There was a girl, also, left under your charge, was there not?” Max flushed slightly. The last night’s thoughts, which occupation had hunted out of his mind, came back like a torrent. He caught a glimpse of himself in a great velvet-bordered mirror which stood over the chimney-piece, he looked old, grave, unlike a lover for Thérèse.

“Mademoiselle Veuillot has found a temporary home, Monseigneur, at the house of Ignace Roulleau, the notary in Rue St. Servan. The conditions of her small legacy require her to remain in Charville.”

“She might be received at our convent,” suggested the Bishop gravely.

M. Deshoulières made no answer beyond taking leave.

Chapter Ten.

“Have I not nursed, for two long wretched years, That miserable hope, that every day Grew weaker, like a baby sick to death, Yet dearer for its weakness, day by day?” Madoc.

After that evening walk from the river Thérèse told Nannon she thought that M. Deshoulières was kinder than she had fancied. Nannon, whose prejudices were invincible, shook her head.

“He may be kind when he pleases, I do not deny it, but he is as hard as a stone.”

“Every one is hard, I think,” said Thérèse, sadly.

Her bright hopefulness was leaving her; there was so much irritation and fret in her daily life, so much contact with low, mean natures, that it had not power to hold its own. That future to which she looked forward was not one which strengthened her to bear the present; it rather added to the fever of impatience which consumed her. We want something stronger than props of our own rearing when the dark days come with their storms. Poor child, it appeared to herself as if she was for ever stretching out her hands and groping vainly in the darkness for something by which to hold. There was one figure among those which for ages had stood outside the great Cathedral and called to the passers-by, that she had grown almost to identify with herself—a woman who seemed half in supplication, half in fear. It is probable that no one else had seen that expression in the attitude. Those beautiful grave statues at Charville are able to adapt themselves, with something of the power of the Psalms, to the wants and wishes of those who love them. All around are the great flat corn plains; every thing is made to speak of crops and gains, getting and selling, buying of farms, proving of oxen. But in the midst there rises, like an eternal protest, this glorious Cathedral, with spires always pointing heavenwards, always typifying what man’s life may be amid all the world’s care and turmoil. Life in the world, not of it. Thérèse, who did not recognise this, who perhaps had not lived long enough to search for types and shadows in the things about her, was yet conscious of an increasing delight in wandering round the old Cathedral. She fancied she was losing her props when, after all, she was being trained to hold by those that would never fail her.

Madame Roulleau, in spite of her cleverness, almost endangered her prospects by her treatment of Thérèse just now. Even her covetousness was not so strong as her love of oppression, and her pleasure in humiliating the girl by all possible means. Thérèse was made almost a drudge in the household. Pride prevented her from complaining, but she felt fierce and bitter against her oppressors. She might have appealed to M. Deshoulières, of whom she stood less in awe than before their last conversation, had she seen him, but for a month or two they did not meet. He came two or three times to Rue St. Servan, but Mme. Roulleau held there might be dangers in interviews, and contrived that he should never see Thérèse. As it happened, also, they never encountered one another elsewhere. Every one knows how in a large place you may be months without once crossing the track of your nearest neighbour, and so it was with Thérèse and M. Deshoulières. Had he been resolute, of course he could have effected it without difficulty, but, in truth, he was not decided what to do. Deep in his heart that little vision of Thérèse in his home, loved and cared for, had never stirred from its place. If during the day, with its ceaseless toil and battling, there was a veil drawn across the sweet, homely picture, he suffered his thoughts to dwell upon it with an ever-deepening tenderness when the quiet hours came. What held him back was the dread lest he might take an unfair advantage of the girl’s present loneliness. He knew nothing of all that made it most bitter, of the weariness of her waiting, of the physical hardship of her lot, but he knew from her own words that a sense of her desolation was strong upon her, and he feared lest it might lead her to accept another lot, afterwards to prove more unendurable. He thought hardly of himself, he was so much older, so grave, so occupied, that he dreaded hurrying her into a mistake. He longed to see her, but with the determination which he exercised over longings, he accepted the separation, believing that each day she might become more reconciled to her position, or better acquainted with the depths of her own feelings.

It was a noble, unselfish heart in which the unconscious Thérèse was set as in a little shrine.

Does it make life sadder or brighter to think how much of this unknown treasuring there is in the world around us? People who fancy themselves least cared for sometimes have a wealth of affection poured out upon them, of which they may never dream until the day when every thing is made plain. One does not know whether it is comforting or saddening to recollect this,—comforting, one hopes, because it is very sure that such love cannot be wasted, whether it seems so in our eyes or not.

November came. It was not foggy, but there was a good deal of rain, and the air was damp and chilly. The vines that had been so fresh and blithe through the summer now disconsolately waved their straggling helpless branches to and fro from the little balconies. The great plains, in which lay hid the promise of next year’s abundance, looked brown and dreary without their wealth of golden corn. Thérèse used to escape to her own room when the teaching was over, and shiver there rather than sit with Madame Roulleau in the little ugly room with its great stove filling up one corner. Her walks with Nannon were necessarily fewer and interrupted, owing to the shortening days and the rain, and she suffered for want of them. She grew pale and thin, her step lost its elasticity, her mouth its smile. Was she never to escape from this life, this weary, hateful treadmill? When depression seizes on one point it assails us on all; those cruel words of Fabien’s became much more terrible to her than ever they had seemed before. She was among those he had renounced; what was her love that it should hold him through those years, across unknown distances? And then she would determine that he was dead.

One day—while it was quite early, and Thérèse was working away at the children, with a dreary sense of drudgery, which did them and herself no good—Mme. Roulleau, who had gone to her bedroom to hunt for something in a great press, was startled by her husband coming in upon her with a white scared face.

“Zénobie—Zénobie, mon amie!” he said piteously.

“Well? What now?”

“That which we dreaded is arriving—Monsieur Saint-Martin! What will become of us?”

“Is Monsieur Saint-Martin here?” inquired madame with perfect coolness, although she turned a shade paler.

“Here! The saints forbid!”

“The saints are not likely to be on your side, so that I would not place much confidence in their protection, if I were you,” said his wife, sarcastically. “Have the goodness, Ignace, to inform me what this great event may be that you find so disturbing.”

“Mon amie, do not be angry. I have come to you at once. But it is ruin. Monsieur Deshoulières has just been here; he has received a letter—”

“Well?”

“A letter about our affair.”

“Give it to me.”

“How did she know I had it?” murmured the little man, half in admiration, half in fear, as he took it from his pocket. Madame received it in silence. The note consisted only of a few lines:—“If Monsieur Deshoulières desires tidings of Monsieur Fabien Saint-Martin, nephew of Monsieur Moreau, recently deceased, let him find himself at the Lion d’Or, at Pont-huine, on the afternoon of the 20th of November, at three o’clock.” No more. The post-mark was Paris.

“The twentieth! That is to-day,” remarked madame meditatively. The paleness had increased a little; her lips were set more tightly.

“One hundred and eighty francs a month,” groaned Roulleau.

“And M. Deshoulières is gone?”

“Gone? No. He has just received a message from the Préfet. Madame is taken in sharp illness. He came here fretting and fuming on his way to the Préfecture, as if this horrible Monsieur Saint-Martin were the one person he most desired to see upon the earth. Did you not understand, Zénobie? It is I who must go.”

“You! I understand! How can I understand?” screamed madame, facing round upon him in a flame of indignation—“when you come crying out that you are ruined, all the time having the game placed in your very hands! You have grown so crooked, you cannot even speak straight to your own wife. Can you not think even so much as this for yourself! Are you blind—a dolt—a baby—an imbecile!”

“Zénobie!” implored the little man in an agony.

“Yes!” she said, with a world of scorn in her tone; “that is your métier, and all you are fit for—to take care lest any one should overhear us. I cannot keep patience always. All the world may know that Monsieur Saint-Martin is coming, if they will.”

“Zénobie!”

“I repeat it. At what time do you go?”

“The train leaves in half an hour.”

“Then do not interrupt me.”

She turned away from him, and sat down. M. Roulleau, too glad to gain peace, waited patiently. For five minutes there was silence, broken by no sound but the heavy drip of rain; a distant rumble of carts; one or two church clocks striking the hour. Then madame lifted her head, and spoke in a measured, set voice, very different from her late vehement outbreak,—

“You will go to the station, and take a ticket for Pont-huine,” she said; “but you will get out at Maury, the village on this side of it. Make what inquiries you can about strangers at the Lion d’Or, and return by the last train. It is probable that M. Deshoulières will meet you at the station.”

“What then?” said the little man breathlessly. “You have seen nothing, heard nothing, done nothing. No one has appeared at the Lion d’Or. If you may venture an opinion, the whole affair is a silly hoax. Are you capable of this?”

“Every day implicates us more,” Roulleau said, wiping his face.

“There is no gain without speculation,” replied madame, with one of her scornful glances. “Would you prefer opening your arms to Monsieur Saint-Martin?”

“He will ask so many questions.”

“It is the more easy in such a case to shape your answers.”

Little Roulleau was helpless under her inexorable will. His own sordid nature prompted him one way, while his cowardice held him back. He would have been a villain without his wife, but he would have dug underground, putting out all his little crafty resources, to fence himself round from discovery. She worked more boldly and for larger ventures. The imprudences she committed kept him in continual alarm. At the same time there was a fertility of resource, a vigour in her undertakings, of which he acknowledged the value, and which were strong enough to carry him along against his judgment. He remonstrated, but he had never sufficient power to resist. She swept away all his little terrified suggestions like a whirlwind. Ignace put on his yellow straw hat, took his thread gloves and his umbrella, and went obediently to the station. Madame was more polite that day to Thérèse than she had been for months.

In the evening, Thérèse was sitting with the children, who were supposed to be preparing their lessons for the next day. Octavie, always upright and suggestive, was at the table, with a book open before her, on the alert, as usual, to snub Mademoiselle Veuillot or her brother, as the case might require. He was a very ugly little boy, with his baggy knickerbockers and cut-away jacket, and a closely cropped little head; but he was not so utterly detestable in Thérèse’s eyes as Octavie. With all his obstinacy and provoking ways he was not a worldly, unnatural little being like her. He had not her patronising, superior ways; he was not always watching and spying. I am telling you what Thérèse thought, and it must be remembered that she was not in a patient mood at this time: she was eating the bread of poverty, and it was made very bitter. This evening Adolphe would not attend. He jumped up and down, upset his chair, danced about the room. “Mamma thinks that Adolphe already knows less of history than when he began it with you, mademoiselle,” remarked Octavie, pleasantly.

“I know more than you!” shouted Adolphe, indignant at this report, and still careering round the table. “I know more than you, and more than mademoiselle, and more than a great many people.”

Octavie lifted her arched eyebrows.

“But yes, I do, and I could tell you about it, only I don’t choose.”

“Adolphe!” said Thérèse, sharply, “I am waiting.”

“She always thinks that mamma tells her every thing,” said Adolphe triumphantly, “but she does not. She is only a little girl, is she, mademoiselle? I know a great deal more.”

“Madame Barry never permitted Adolphe to misbehave himself, mademoiselle. It is only since you have been our governess,” said Octavie, furiously.

“She will not be our governess long,” cried Adolphe, before Thérèse could speak, “if M. Saint-Martin is come.”

“Monsieur Saint-Martin!”

All the room turned round before Thérèse; she caught at the table to steady herself. When she opened her eyes, the children were staring at her, Octavie’s sharp black eyes looking curiously, Adolphe a little frightened. Thérèse cried out in a glad tone they had never heard before from her,—

“Is Monsieur Saint-Martin come, Adolphe?”

Nobody answered. Octavie had nudged her brother, and he began to be afraid that he might be punished for repeating words he had caught in his mother’s high-pitched voice as he passed the bedroom door. “All the world may know that Monsieur Saint-Martin is coming,” she had said; but Adolphe remembered one or two sharp calamities which had befallen him for repeating his mother’s sayings when she was “in a tempest.” He would not speak.

“Adolphe, dear Adolphe, is he really come?” said Thérèse. Her eyes looked like stars; she put out her hands imploringly; she wanted to hear it again, but she believed it at once; she was so young that happiness seemed the most natural thing in the world. Of course he was come; her troubles were at an end; her heart felt as if it was dancing for joy. He was come; every thing was changed, forgotten; her youthfulness leaped up again; she looked kindly even on Octavie. “Where is he, dear children, is he here?”

Adolphe shook his head emphatically; he did not know what to say. Octavie, who believed that a great blunder had been committed, said, patronisingly,—

“You should not listen to him, mademoiselle: he does not understand.”

“Mamma said it,” cried Adolphe stoutly, determined to assert himself. But Thérèse was already flying down the stairs into the little salon. “Perhaps he is there,” she thought. Monsieur and madame, who were standing together in the middle of the room, turned hastily round as Thérèse came quickly in. It might have been the light, which was not burning very brightly or clearly, that made their faces look yellow and haggard, the notary’s especially. Perhaps they, too, believed they might have seen M. Saint-Martin, when the door opened so abruptly, and Thérèse, flushed, smiling, radiant, stood before them.

“Is he here?” she asked joyfully, though a momentary glance showed her that no one was in the room but monsieur and madame, who were speechless at a question which seemed to echo back their fears. Madame recovered herself instantly.

“To whom do you allude, mademoiselle?” she inquired with a politeness, to which Thérèse was a stranger.

The girl patted the ground impatiently. “To my cousin—to M. Saint-Martin. Adolphe tells me that he is come.”

“That boy romances—he is a droll,” said madame, holding up her hands and turning to her husband, with a little show of parental interest. “He means no harm; but he must not be allowed to make announcements so unfounded without correction. I shall—”

“What do you mean?” exclaimed Thérèse, with a sharp cry of disappointment.

“My poor mademoiselle,” said madame, taking hold of her hand, “you must not be angry with him, he is but a child; he has the heart of an angel, but he talks like a boy without knowing what he is about. Do you not suppose that I should have flown to tell you, had only Monsieur Saint-Martin—whom we so desire—arrived?”

“And it is not so? Oh, madame, are you sure?”

All the radiancy had gone; her eyes filled with tears. Madame, who was not yet sure what a day might bring forth, made her sit down, even kept her hand. Thérèse let her hold it, she was too stunned to be altogether conscious; a dull weight of disappointment had fallen upon her, from which she could not at once rally.

“I will tell you, my child. Ignace, some one is waiting to see you,” said madame, significantly; for the little man was still standing under the yellow light, looking from Thérèse to the door, as if another person might yet enter. “Now he is gone, and I will tell you all about it. There has been a letter from some foolish person—my husband would assure you that such idle jesters are never wanting—to hint that there was news to be heard of M. Saint-Martin. Poor Ignace! He has a good heart; he started off at once. ‘One should neglect nothing,’ he said to me, and he went away, deserting his business, and spending the day in leaving not a stone unturned. He has come back so weary! I must go and give him his soup.”

“And he heard nothing?” asked Thérèse, faintly.

“Absolutely nothing. I guessed how it would be, but I would not discourage him. You should not have had this disappointment, chère mademoiselle, but who could have expected that little droll to have put two and two together so cleverly?” said madame, smiling. “You find him almost too quick, do you not? and he has not Octavie’s admirable discretion. He is impetuous, like me.” Thérèse started up from her seat. “I will go to my room, since it is all a delusion,” she said, in a harsh, changed voice.

“You must not think too much of this Monsieur Saint-Martin,” said madame, with a little assumption of motherliness. “Men come and go, like the clouds; one can put no dependence upon them. And you shall not lose your home, let Monsieur Deshoulières say what he will. Allons, I have a heart!”

The girl made no answer. She stood motionless until madame had finished, then turned away, walked heavily out of the apartment, up the stairs, and into her own little room. There, with a low, bitter cry, which would no longer be repressed, she flung herself down by her bed. The cry, which at first was inarticulate, shaped itself into words: “Fabien, Fabien, I can bear this life no longer! Oh, why, why do you not come? It is so hard. Why have I all this to endure?”

Chapter Eleven.

“Like sun above, a woman’s love Must have its destined way; To some great gain, to others pain, And wherefore who can say? But be it bliss or wretchedness, In reason man must own That it is true, and nothing new, She loves for love alone.”

Poor Thérèse’s hope seemed to desert her terribly after that disappointment. Madame, who, for a few days, was polite and kind in a spasmodic sort of fashion, fell back into her old ways, when nothing more was heard of the appointment at the Lion d’Or. Thérèse used to feel strange alternations of listlessness and indignation creeping over her. At times it was as if a life was closing round her against which it was hopeless to rebel,—a life which was relentless and overpowering; at times her heart cried out passionately against her oppressors. She accepted whatever was put upon her with a dull kind of aching, but without a protest. She was young and healthy, so that although her cheek lost its roundness, her strength did not absolutely give way; but the grief she suffered was too much mixed with bitterness, and too repressed from outward signs, not to be hurtful even physically. It seemed to her as if all the world were against her—M. Deshoulières, Monsieur and Madame Roulleau; even Fabien, in his far-away home, had renounced her. Yet she never ceased to love him. Only hope was shaken, because faith had never been strong in poor Thérèse. Her childhood had been loveless; the child had little teaching,—teaching, that is, which should make her strive after high things, or shape her little life after a holier pattern than those she saw around her. She believed her aunt Ferdinande to have been a good woman, but it was a goodness so weak and despairing that the girl despised it. It seemed to her as if this world she lived in was one where might, however unjust, carried the day. Where trust should have been there was a void in her heart, from which sprang no comfort, only bitterness and rebellion.

This year the winter at Charville set in with strange fits and starts. The owners of thermometers took a proud delight in electrifying their neighbours by reports of sudden rises and falls in their favourite study. There came sharp frosts, even snow. The river flowed like an inky stream between white banks; icicles froze round the stone fountain; there was what old Nannon called a jolie gelée—a certain keen, bitter beauty in the harmonies of white and grey, in the snow-laden boughs, in the great sweep of plain and sky. The women clattered home from market, instead of staying to gossip by the way. Little Dutch-like children, with shrieks of ecstasy, made slides down the steep streets, to the peril of the limbs of passers-by; old people crouched round the stoves, to get what warmth they could in their miserable houses. Instead of this weather lasting, however, there followed abrupt thaws, soft damp days, quite unlike the time of year. The Charville people hardly knew what to make of it. “The cold is unpleasant, but when one has made up one’s mind, it may as well come,” grumbled old André, the wood-cutter. That is the way with some of us. We are half angry when the evil we have prognosticated is mercifully averted.

On one of these mild afternoons Madame Roulleau took her two children to pay a visit of ceremony; Octavie arrayed in a silk frock, which had been sent to Thérèse with her other possessions—not many—from Ardron, and which she had cut up for Octavie in those first days when she hoped to please. Little Roulleau was in his office; Nannon came to the door to find out whether mademoiselle wanted her, and at the same moment arrived Monsieur Deshoulières.

“Bonjour, Nannon,” he said, cheerfully. “So mademoiselle is in the house?”

“She may have gone out with Madame Roulleau,” replied Nannon with unblushing promptitude. “As monsieur sees, I have just come.”

“No, I saw madame and her children in the distance. Have the goodness to ask mademoiselle to give me the pleasure of five minutes’ conversation in the salon.”

“What eyes he has!” muttered Nannon to herself, going unwillingly up the stairs on her errand. “And yet they are as blue as the very cornflowers. What does he come here frightening that poor child for, I should be glad to know! A man so hard as he has no right to have eyes like that.—If mademoiselle pleases I will say I cannot find her.”

“Monsieur Deshoulières!” said Thérèse, crumpling together the work on her lap with a quick, agitated movement, when Nannon made her announcement.

“Shall you see him? Beware, then, mademoiselle. I know these men. Do not yield a thing, or the convent will be thrust down your throat.”

“I do not think I care,” the girl said, rising wearily, “nothing can be worse than this life.”

“Am I to come with you, then, or shall I go on with the work? Dame! do they give you such holes to mend!”

“I had better go alone,” answered Thérèse, pausing to think over what in a French household is always a breach of etiquette. “There is no one to care,” she said to herself bitterly, as she went down.

When M. Deshoulières saw her enter, he started. Her face was pale, thin; there was a heaviness in her movements which his experienced eye noted at once.

“You have been ill, mademoiselle?” he said anxiously. He had come without any very definite purpose; it was, he told himself, to see how she looked, whether she was well and happy. The sight of her sent the blood rushing to his heart, he hardly knew what he was saying. Strong man as he was, he stood there trembling. “You have been ill?” he repeated.

Thérèse shook her head.

“Then something has happened?”

“What should it be, monsieur?” she said, with a half sob which would not be repressed. “I live on from day to day.”

“My poor child, is life so hard?”

She looked at him in wonder. What did he mean—he, who was one of her persecutors—by standing there, saying kind words, and looking down upon her with compassionate eyes? She thought the words would be like Madame Roulleau’s, lasting only for a day, and resented them in her heart. He, meanwhile, was thinking of what she had said once, that pathetic little sentence which had sounded in his ears ever since,—“Every place must be a little sad, since I belong to no one.” Poor desolate Thérèse! She was shutting up her heart, misjudging even at this moment the man who was yearning to pour out upon her the best gift this world has to offer—a great, unselfish love. She answered his question coldly.

“It will all come to an end one day. Do you want to speak to Monsieur or Madame Roulleau, monsieur?”

He was a little chilled and disappointed. He did not stay to remember that the feelings which had been growing stronger with him week by week, day by day, must be unknown to her. It was unreasonable, perhaps, to expect another answer, and yet he fancied it should have been different.

“I do not want them,” he said gently. “I came to speak to you, to know whether you were still contented with these people. You do not look so. Is there any thing I can do?”

“You have heard nothing more from the Lion d’Or?” she asked, evading an answer.

“No,” said the doctor, more abruptly. He disliked the subject of this trust, which brought him letters, papers to sign, difficulties, and endless arrangements. Only a week before he had paid another flying visit to Ardron, about a matter which required his personal superintendence, and he made a second attempt upon the imperturbable curé. “Still no news?” inquired the curé, with that slight lifting of the eyebrows which M. Deshoulières found so irritating. “Absolutely no promise of news?” And then he was told of that impotent visit to the Lion d’Or. “And you found no one? Decidedly, monsieur, as you say, there must be imposition somewhere.” That was all the doctor could extract, and it was not at all pleasant. “No,” he replied to Thérèse, “I wish I could have gone myself; but, after all, it would only have been one fool more. Roulleau says there will be a dozen such absurdities. It is always the case in these affaire. You should have known nothing about it. How came they to be so indiscreet as to cause you the disappointment?”

“It was the children’s doing,” she said; and then, with a sudden impulse, which astonished herself, she stretched out her hands imploringly. “Promise me, promise me,” she said, “always to tell me when there is a little hope like that.”

Her eyes were filled with tears, even those few kindly words were breaking down the barriers of pride. He took her hands; he was greatly moved by the child-like appeal. “I promise,” he said quietly.

“It is horrible to think that things are being concealed from one.”

“You may trust me. But, my child, why are you hungering so terribly after a change? Cannot we make you happy here?”

Something in his voice made her heart stand still with fright. She tried to draw away her hands, but he held them fast, so fast that he almost hurt her. In fact, he did not know what he was doing. He kept his voice under control, but the room swam round. He was only conscious that she was close to him.

“Let me go, monsieur,” she said, in a low, hurried voice; and then he recovered himself with an effort.

“Hear me first,” he said, releasing her hands; but standing between her and the door, and holding her still more, as she felt, by a certain determination in his voice. “I did not come here meaning to say this; but when I see you looking so changed, so sad, I cannot keep it back. I think I could make you happy. It should be my life’s joy. I am old—much older than you, a plain, rough man; but—child, child, do you know how I love you—!”

The last words broke from him with a passionate ring. She put her hands before her eyes. “No, no, no!” she cried.

There was a moment’s silence. Then he began to speak again, patting a great force upon himself as he did so. “Forgive me. I know you cannot understand—cannot feel as I do. I do not ask for it. I only ask you to let me give you the home you want. You say you belong to no one. It is at least something to have a home,” he said in abrupt sentences, with his voice unconsciously tremulous.

Still silence, yet her heart beat so quickly that she fancied its great throbs filled the room. What was this that had come to her? What sudden awakening had changed their positions? And what was it that was offered?—a home—rest—deliverance from bondage, it seemed. She had no love to give; but if he did not demand it? He was not hard, she knew that now, and did him justice. Would it not be easy to put her hand into his, and go away where at least she would find kind shelter? One must be in a position like hers before judging poor, desolate Thérèse for the strength of the temptation. Fabien, who had been gone so long—Fabien, who had renounced her with the rest—Fabien and weary waiting—unkind words, hard toil, solitude, dreariness, on the one side; on the other, love, tenderness, protection. She hesitated, her heart cried out for these good things, she half put out her hand, and glanced at him with shy, frightened eyes. His own grew more hopeful, more eager, as he noticed the little action.

“Will you trust me? Will you come?” he said in a deep, tender voice. He fancied he could read her maidenly reluctance, her fears; he knew nothing of that other who formed the real barrier between them; he did not even understand what motives half impelled her towards him. He had her hands in his again before she quite knew what he was about. It all seemed to her like a dream. “Can you give me a little love?” he said, smiling. The word awoke her.

“No, no,” she cried, wrenching her hands away suddenly. “Oh, what are you saying! Never, never!”

He drew back, terribly hurt. His love deserved a better answer than this, and he knew it. He had spoken from the depth of his heart, and thus he had a right to expect a less indignant rejection. But the next moment pity overcame his anger. She had flung herself into a chair and buried her face on the table, in an attitude so despairing that he forgot himself. He walked quickly to the window and back, then Thérèse heard his voice, changed, but with a tone in it which thrilled through her.

“At least let me be your friend. Tell me how I have troubled you.”

She was hardly conscious of speaking. Perhaps some quickened perception awoke in him in the pain of that moment, and her lips must have framed the name, for he repeated the word “Fabien,” under his breath; and then there came a silence, which seemed to her endless.

She looked up at last. He had dropped into a chair opposite to her; his face was very pale and stern. He breathed quickly. Almost involuntarily she said, “Do not be angry with me!”

“Why did I not know this before?” he asked abruptly.

“I thought you might have understood—I could not explain—the others knew,” she said, in a broken voice.

“Then your marriage is arranged?”

“Nothing is arranged,” she cried out quickly. “My uncle would not hear of it. He wanted Fabien to marry a lady who was noble, and had a large dot, and—there were other reasons—but this was one cause why they quarrelled. And it was after he had gone that he wrote those cruel words,” she said, her voice faltering.

Max rose up again, and came close to her. “My poor child,” he said, “how you must have suffered!” Then, as she was going to speak, he stopped her. “Listen. I do not pretend to tell you that this has not been a heavy shock. If I had but known—but I did not know, I have been ignorant, blundering, blind. You are the first woman I ever loved, and—but I do not blame you. Thérèse, remember that always, there is no one to blame but myself. We will forget all this, and have no more such mistakes, only I must always be your friend. I claim it as a right.”

There was a world of simple manliness, of tenderness, in his voice. Thérèse, who had expected reproaches and bitter words, was deeply moved by it. How had she misjudged this man! She had been prejudiced, blind, to the true nobility, which lay hid behind a somewhat blunt exterior; until this moment she had recognised nothing of it. She thought how strong he was, how able to protect, to teach her; her poor little weary heart longed for such a helper, even in the midst of its clinging to Fabien. Fabien himself seemed to lose something when she compared the two. For very weariness the conflict might perhaps have ended in Max Deshoulières’ favour, if he had chosen that it should do so.

“It is such a long waiting, and those were such hard words,” she said, falteringly.

“Foolish words,” he said, with a little sad smile. “People cannot renounce so readily, even if they wish it. If you love him, do not doubt him, my child. There are plenty of reasons which may have caused his silence; he has been impetuous and foolish, no doubt, but with such an uncle there are excuses for a young man. Before long we shall hear of him, believe me.”

He tried to speak cheerfully. Every word cost him a stab; but for her sake the brave chivalrous heart took this added burden upon itself. Perhaps he guessed something of what she was feeling, and pitied the weakness and inexperience which found it hard to endure. With a pang he put on one side the bright visions which he had been cherishing; all that he could do now was to be her friend and helper, and that he would do faithfully. He saw her brighten under his words; she looked up gladly.

“Fabien will not long stay away, when he knows I am alone,” she said, with a renewal of hope. “You are sure no more can be done?”

“I will tell Roulleau to redouble his exertions. You may be sure M. Saint-Martin will not expatriate himself without from time to time making inquiries. Unless, indeed, he is a second Diogenes.”

“He was not like Diogenes, at all,” said Thérèse, simply. “Oh, monsieur, you have made me so much happier!”

When she had spoken, the cruelty of her words struck her. He was thinking of her, caring for her, and she was taken up only by her own trouble. The contrast was something new to her: as it made itself felt, she reddened painfully, and the tears rushed into her eyes. “Forgive me,” she said, tremblingly, “I—I—”

“Are we not to be friends?” he said, with a kind, steadfast look. “And for what are friends good, unless it be to help one another?”

“But—” she stopped.

“But what? Do you think what I have said should prevent me from helping you? Child, child, we learn many things as life goes on. What I told you is true—I have never loved before, I hoped I never should love; I believed I should go through the world, and do the work God put before me alone; I desired nothing more. It came upon me unawares. I do not think that there can have been a time when I did not love you, but I did not know it. And now it has become a part of myself, something which can never be any more separated from me. Hush! do not be frightened. I promise you that you may hear all I have to say without disloyalty to—him. It can never leave me: it has brought me a sorrow, a great sorrow; but even at this moment—Thérèse, Thérèse, do you think I could part with it? Do you think that I do not even now thank God for this gift? There is a sweetness in it which no suffering can overpower.”