"A sunbeam had traversed his heart; it had just disappeared."

ERNEST DAUDET (Les Duperies de l'Amour).

Since the fatal evening when the secret of his new-born love had been discovered by his servant, Marcel had observed the woman on his steps, watching his slightest proceedings, scrutinizing his most innocent gestures.

He encountered everywhere her keen inquisitive look.

He wished at first to meet it with the greatest circumspection and the most absolute reserve. He avoided all conversation which he thought might lead him into the way of fresh confidences, and he affected an icy coldness.

But he was soon obliged to renounce this means.

The woman, irritated, suddenly became sullen and angry, and made the CurÉ pay dear for the reserve which he imposed on himself. The dinner was burnt, the soup tasted only of warm water, his bed was hard, his socks were full of holes, his shoes badly cleaned, finally, he was several times awakened with a start by terrible noises during the night.

He attempted a few remonstrances. Veronica replied with sharpness and threatened to leave him.

—You can look for another maid, she said to him; as for me, I have had enough of it.

—Oh! you old hussy, he thought; I would soon pack you off to the devil, if
I were not afraid of your cursed tongue.

Then, for the sake of peace he changed his tactics. He was affable and smiling and spoke to her gently; and the servant's manners changed directly.

She also became like she had been before, attentive and submissive.

Several days passed thus in a continual constraint and hidden anger; at the same time, a restlessness consumed him, which he used all his power to conceal.

He had not seen Suzanne again, either at the morning Masses, or in her usual walks. He looked forward to Sunday; but at High Mass her place remained empty; he reckoned on Vespers: Vespers, and then Compline passed without her. In vain he searched the nave and the galleries, his sorrowing gaze did not find Suzanne, and he chanted the Laudate pueri dominum with the voice of the De profundis.

Where was she? He had no other thought. Her father had prevented her from coming to church, without any doubt; but why had he not seen her as before upon the roads, which they both liked? He made a thousand conjectures, and with his thoughts completely absorbed in Suzanne, he forgot aught else. He saw no longer those attractive members of his congregation, who admired him in secret as they accompanied him with their fresh voices, and were astonished at the mysterious trouble which agitated their sweet pastor; he forgot even the odious spy who watched him in some corner of the church, and whom he would meet again at his house.

Ashamed of himself, he recalled with a blush the hand he had kissed in a moment of frenzy, which must have let Suzanne suspect what was the plague which consumed his heart, and he would have sacrificed ten years of his life to become again what he was in the eyes of this young girl, hardly a month ago; only a stranger.

Unaccustomed to the world, he did not yet know women well enough to be aware that they are full of indulgence for follies committed for their sake, and more ready to excuse an insult than to pardon indifference. Under these circumstances vanity takes the place of courage, and gives to the commonest girl the instincts of a patrician. There is no ill-made woman but wishes to see the world at her feet.

And the espionage which laid so heavy on him, became every day more irritating and more insupportable.

In vain he fled from the house, and walked on straight before him; far, very far, as far as possible, he felt his servant's gaze following him, and weighing upon him with all the burden of her furious and clear-sighted jealousy.

He felt that lynx eye pierce the walls and watch him everywhere, even when he had put between himself and the parsonage, the streets, the gardens, the width of the village and the depth of the woods.

She received him on his return with a smile on her lips, but her eager eye searched him from head to foot, studied his looks, his gestures, the folds of his cassock and even the dust on his shoes; as though she wished to strip him and bare his heart in order to feast upon his secret conflicts.