uedoc. He behaved
well, it was said, during the plague of 1721. However, he stayed but
seldom at Toulon, lived quite as a man of the world, never said mass,
and passed for something more than a lady's man.

In July he went to Toulon, and though Girard would have turned him
aside from Ollioules and Cadiere, he was curious to see her
nevertheless. He saw her in one of her best moments. She took his
fancy, seemed to him a pretty little saint; and so far did he believe
in her enlightenment from above, as to speak to her thoughtlessly of
all his affairs, his interests, his future doings, consulting her as
he would have consulted a teller of fortunes.

In spite, however, of the brethren's prayers he hesitated to take her
away from Ollioules and from Girard. A means was found of resolving
him. A report was spread about Toulon, that the girl had shown a
desire to flee into the wilderness, as her model saint, Theresa, had
essayed to do at twelve years old. Girard, they said, had put this
fancy into her head, that he might one day carry her off beyond the
diocese whose pride she was, and box-up his treasure in some far
convent, where the Jesuits, enjoying the whole monopoly, might turn to
the most account her visions, her miracles, her winsome ways as a
young saint of the people. The bishop felt much hurt. He instructed
the abbess to give Mdlle. Cadiere up to no one save her mother, who
was certain to come very shortly and take her away from the convent to
a country-house belonging to the family.

In order not to offend Girard, they got Cadiere to write and say that,
if such a change incommoded him, he could find a colleague and give
her a second confessor. He saw their meaning, and preferred disarming
jealousy by abandoning Cadiere. He gave her up on the 15th September,
in a note most carefully worded and piteously humble, by which he
strove to leave her friendly and tender towards himself. "If I have
sometimes done wrong as concerning you, you will never at least forget
how wishful I have been to help you.... I am, and ever will be, all
yours in the Secret Heart of Jesus."

The bishop, however, was not reassured. He fancied that the three
Jesuits, Girard, Sabatier, and Grignet, wanted to beguile him, and
some day, with some order from Paris, rob him of his little woman. On
the 17th September, he decided once for all to send his carriage, a
light fashionable _phaeton_, as it was called, and have her taken off
at once to her