when Girard came, he ventured to stay beside her as
though to watch over her safety. Girard boldly turned him out of the
room, and the mother angrily drove her son from the house.

This was very like to bring on an explosion. Of course, the young
man, swelling with rage at this hard usage, at this expulsion from his
home, would cry aloud to the Preaching Friars, who in their turn would
seize so fair an opening, to go about repeating the story and stirring
up the whole town against the Jesuit. The latter, however, resolved to
meet them with a strangely daring move, to save himself by a crime.
The libertine became a scoundrel.

He knew his victim, had seen the scrofulous traces of her childhood,
traces healed up but still looking different from common scars. Some
of these were on her feet, others a little below her bosom. He formed
a devilish plan of renewing the wounds and passing them off as
"_stigmata_," like those procured from heaven by St. Francis and other
saints, who sought after the closest conformity with their pattern,
the crucified Redeemer, even to bearing on themselves the marks of the
nails and the spear-wound in the side. The Jesuits were distressed at
having nought to show against the miracles of the Jansenists. Girard
felt sure of pleasing them by an unlooked-for miracle. He could not
but receive the support of his own order, of their house at Toulon.
One of them, old Sabatier, was ready to believe anything: he had of
yore been Cadiere's confessor, and this affair would bring him into
credit. Another of these was Father Grignet, a pious old dotard, who
would see whatever they pleased. If the Carmelites or any others were
minded to have their doubts, they might be taught, by warnings from a
high quarter, to consult their safety by keeping silence. Even the
Jacobin Cadiere, hitherto a stern and jealous foe, might find his
account in turning round and believing in a tale which made his family
illustrious and himself the brother of a saint.

"But," some will say, "did not the thing come naturally? We have
instances numberless, and well-attested, of persons really marked with
the sacred wounds."

The reverse is more likely. When she was aware of the new wounds, she
felt ashamed and distressed with the fear of displeasing Girard by
this return of her childish ailments; for such she deemed the sores
which he had opened afresh while she lay unconscious in the trance. So
she sped away to a neighbour, one Mada