as far as Etretat, I perceived, on lifting my eyes
suddenly, something singular standing on the crest of the cliff, one
might have said a pole decked out with flags. It was she. On seeing me,
she suddenly disappeared. I reentered the house at midday for lunch and
took my seat at the general table, so as to make the acquaintance of this
odd character. But she did not respond to my polite advances, was
insensible even to my little attentions. I poured out water for her
persistently, I passed her the dishes with great eagerness. A slight,
almost imperceptible, movement of the head and an English word, murmured
so low that I did not understand it, were her only acknowledgments.

"I ceased occupying myself with her, although she had disturbed my
thoughts.

"At the end of three days I knew as much about her as did Madame
Lecacheur herself.

"She was called Miss Harriet. Seeking out a secluded village in which to
pass the summer, she had been attracted to Benouville some six months
before and did not seem disposed to leave it. She never spoke at table,
ate rapidly, reading all the while a small book of the Protestant
propaganda. She gave a copy of it to everybody. The cure himself had
received no less than four copies, conveyed by an urchin to whom she had
paid two sous commission. She said sometimes to our hostess abruptly,
without preparing her in the least for the declaration:

"'I love the Saviour more than all. I admire him in all creation; I adore
him in all nature; I carry him always in my heart.'

"And she would immediately present the old woman with one of her tracts
which were destined to convert the universe.

"In, the village she was not liked. In fact, the schoolmaster having
pronounced her an atheist, a kind of stigma attached to her. The cure,
who had been consulted by Madame Lecacheur, responded:

"'She is a heretic, but God does not wish the death of the sinner, and I
believe her to be a person of pure morals.'

"These words, 'atheist,' 'heretic,' words which no one can precisely
define, threw doubts into some minds. It was asserted, however, that this
English woman was rich and that she had passed her life in travelling
through every country in the world because her family had cast her off.
Why had her family cast her off? Because of her impiety, of course!

"She was, in fact, one of those people of exalted principles; one of
those opinionated puritans, of which England produces so many; one of
thos