gave herself,
with love's devotion, to the mere mechanical well-being of that
unhappy man, whose madness she so penetrated that she never believed
him mad. She was simple in manner, frank in speech, and her pallid
face was not lacking in strength and character, though its features
were regular. She never spoke of the events of her life. But at times
a sudden quiver passed over her as she listened to the story of some
sad or dreadful incident, thus betraying the emotions that great
sufferings had developed within her. She had come to live at Tours
after losing the companion of her life; but she was not appreciated
there at her true value and was thought to be merely an amiable woman.
She did much good, and attached herself, by preference, to feeble
beings. For that reason the poor vicar had naturally inspired her with
a deep interest.

Mademoiselle de Villenoix, who returned to Tours the next morning,
took Birotteau with her and set him down on the quay of the cathedral
leaving him to make his own way to the Cloister, where he was bent on
going, to save at least the canonry and to superintend the removal of
his furniture. He rang, not without violent palpitations of the heart,
at the door of the house whither, for fourteen years, he had come
daily, and where he had lived blissfully, and from which he was now
exiled forever, after dreaming that he should die there in peace like
his friend Chapeloud. Marianne was surprised at the vicar's visit. He
told her that he had come to see the Abbe Troubert, and turned towards
the ground-floor apartment where the canon lived; but Marianne called
to him:--

"Not there, monsieur le vicaire; the Abbe Troubert is in your old
apartment."

These words gave the vicar a frightful shock. He was forced to
comprehend both Troubert's character and the depths of the revenge so
slowly brought about when he found the canon settled in Chapeloud's
library, seated in Chapeloud's handsome armchair, sleeping, no doubt,
in Chapeloud's bed, and disinheriting at last the friend of Chapeloud,
the man who, for so many years, had confined him to Mademoiselle
Gamard's house, by preventing his advancement in the church, and
closing the best salons in Tours against him. By what magic wand had
the present transformation taken place? Surely these things belonged
to Birotteau? And yet, observing the sardonic air with which Troubert
glanced at that bookcase, the poor abbe knew that the future
vicar-general fel