mother's country-house.

By way of soothing and shielding her, of putting her in good trim, he
looked out for a confessor, and applied first to a Carmelite who had
confessed her before Girard came. But he, being an old man, declined.
Some others also probably hung back. The bishop had to take a
stranger, but three months come from the County (Avignon), one Father
Nicholas, prior of the Barefooted Carmelites. He was a man of forty,
endowed with brains and boldness, very firm and even stubborn. He
showed himself worthy of such a trust by rejecting it. It was not the
Jesuits he feared, but the girl herself. He foreboded no good
therefrom, thought that the angel might be an angel of darkness, and
feared that the Evil One under the shape of a gentle girl would deal
his blows with all the more baleful effect.

But he could not see her without feeling somewhat reassured. She
seemed so very simple, so pleased at length to have a safe, steady
person, on whom she might lean. The continual wavering in which she
had been kept by Girard, had caused her the greatest suffering. On the
first day she spoke more than she had done for a month past, told him
of her life, her sufferings, her devotions, and her visions. Night
itself, a hot night in mid-September, did not stop her. In her room
everything was open, the windows, and the three doors. She went on
even to daybreak, while her brethren lay near her asleep. On the
morrow she resumed her tale under the vine-bower. The Carmelite was
amazed, and asked himself if the Devil could ever be so earnest in
praise of God.

Her innocence was clear. She seemed a nice obedient girl, gentle as a
lamb, frolicsome as a puppy. She wanted to play at bowls, a common
game in those country-places, nor did he for his part refuse to join
her.

If there was a spirit in her, it could not at any rate be called the
spirit of lying. On looking at her closely for a long time, you could
not doubt that her wounds now and then did really bleed. He took care
to make no such immodest scrutiny of them as Girard had done,
contenting himself with a look at the wound upon her foot. Of her
trances he saw quite enough. On a sudden, a burning heat would diffuse
itself everywhere from her heart. Losing her consciousness, she went
into convulsions and talked wildly.

The Carmelite clearly perceived that in her were two persons, the
young woman and the Demon. The former was honest, nay, very fresh of
heart; ignorant, fo