them, nevertheless, because he felt
that at the bottom of their fettered and humble hearts the everlasting
tenderness was burning brightly--that tenderness which was shown
even to him, a priest.

He felt this cursed tenderness, even in their docility, in the low tones
of their voices when speaking to him, in their lowered eyes, and in their
resigned tears when he reproved them roughly. And he would shake his
cassock on leaving the convent doors, and walk off, lengthening his
stride as though flying from danger.

He had a niece who lived with her mother in a little house near him. He
was bent upon making a sister of charity of her.

She was a pretty, brainless madcap. When the abbe preached she laughed,
and when he was angry with her she would give him a hug, drawing him to
her heart, while he sought unconsciously to release himself from this
embrace which nevertheless filled him with a sweet pleasure, awakening in
his depths the sensation of paternity which slumbers in every man.

Often, when walking by her side, along the country road, he would speak
to her of God, of his God. She never listened to him, but looked about
her at the sky, the grass and flowers, and one could see the joy of life
sparkling in her eyes. Sometimes she would dart forward to catch some
flying creature, crying out as she brought it back: "Look, uncle, how
pretty it is! I want to hug it!" And this desire to "hug" flies or lilac
blossoms disquieted, angered, and roused the priest, who saw, even in
this, the ineradicable tenderness that is always budding in women's
hearts.

Then there came a day when the sexton's wife, who kept house for Abbe
Marignan, told him, with caution, that his niece had a lover.

Almost suffocated by the fearful emotion this news roused in him, he
stood there, his face covered with soap, for he was in the act of
shaving.

When he had sufficiently recovered to think and speak he cried: "It is
not true; you lie, Melanie!"

But the peasant woman put her hand on her heart, saying: "May our Lord
judge me if I lie, Monsieur le Cure! I tell you, she goes there every
night when your sister has gone to bed. They meet by the river side; you
have only to go there and see, between ten o'clock and midnight."

He ceased scraping his chin, and began to walk up and down impetuously,
as he always did when he was in deep thought. When he began shaving again
he cut himself three times from his nose to his ear.

All day long he wa