o be cautious, saw the abbess,
who was already embarrassed by her rash step, and then saw Cadiere,
but only in the chapel where he confessed her.

The latter was hurt by his want of warmth. In truth his conduct showed
strange inconsistencies. He unsettled her with his light, agreeable
letters, full of little sportive threats which might have been called
lover-like. And yet he never deigned to see her save in public.

In a note written the same evening she revenged herself in a very
delicate way. She said that when he granted her absolution, she felt
wonderfully dissevered both from herself and from _every other
creature_.

It was just what Girard would have wanted. His plots had fallen into a
sad tangle, and Cadiere was in the way. Her letter enchanted him: far
from being annoyed with her, he enjoined her to keep dissevered. At
the same time, he hinted at the need he had for caution. He had
received a letter, he said, warning him sharply of her faults.
However, as he would set off on the 6th July for Marseilles, he would
see her on the road.

She awaited him, but no Girard came. Her agitation was very great. It
brought on a sharp fit of her old bodily distemper. She spoke of it to
her dear Sister Raimbaud, who would not leave her, who slept with her,
against the rules. This was on the night of the 6th July, when the
heat in that close oven of Ollioules was most oppressive and
condensed. At four or five o'clock, seeing her writhe in sharp
suffering, the other "thought she had the colic, and went to fetch
some fire from the kitchen." While she was gone, Cadiere tried by one
last effort to bring Girard to her side forthwith. Whether with her
nails she had re-opened the wounds in her head, or whether she had
stuck upon it the sharp iron crown, she somehow made herself all
bloody. The pain transfigured her, until her eyes sparkled again.

This lasted not less than two hours. The nuns flocked to see her in
this state, and gazed admiringly. They would even have brought their
Observantines thither, had Cadiere not prevented them.

The abbess would have taken good care to tell Girard nothing, lest he
should see her in a plight so touching, so very pitiful. But good
Madame Lescot comforted the girl by sending the news to the father. He
came, but like a true juggler, instead of going up to her room at
once, had himself an ecstatic fit in the chapel, staying there a whole
hour on his knees, prostrate before the Holy Sacramen