I
was never able to understand why. Probably her only reason was that she
was a stranger, of another race; of a different tongue and of another
religion. She was, in fact, a demoniac!

"She passed her time wandering about the country, adoring and seeking God
in nature. I found her one evening on her knees in a cluster of bushes.
Having discovered something red through the leaves, I brushed aside the
branches, and Miss Harriet at once rose to her feet, confused at having
been found thus, fixing on me terrified eyes like those of an owl
surprised in open day.

"Sometimes, when I was working among the rocks, I would suddenly descry
her on the edge of the cliff like a lighthouse signal. She would be
gazing in rapture at the vast sea glittering in the sunlight and the
boundless sky with its golden tints. Sometimes I would distinguish her at
the end of the valley, walking quickly with her elastic English step, and
I would go toward her, attracted by I know not what, simply to see her
illuminated visage, her dried-up, ineffable features, which seemed to
glow with inward and profound happiness.

"I would often encounter her also in the corner of a field, sitting on
the grass under the shadow of an apple tree, with her little religious
booklet lying open on her knee while she gazed out at the distance.

"I could not tear myself away from that quiet country neighborhood, to
which I was attached by a thousand links of love for its wide and
peaceful landscape. I was happy in this sequestered farm, far removed
from everything, but in touch with the earth, the good, beautiful, green
earth. And--must I avow it?--there was, besides, a little
curiosity which retained me at the residence of Mother Lecacheur. I
wished to become acquainted a little with this strange Miss Harriet and
to know what transpires in the solitary souls of those wandering old
English women.

"We became acquainted in a rather singular manner. I had just finished a
study which appeared to me to be worth something, and so it was, as it
sold for ten thousand francs fifteen years later. It was as simple,
however, as two and two make four and was not according to academic
rules. The whole right side of my canvas represented a rock, an enormous
rock, covered with sea-wrack, brown, yellow and red, across which the sun
poured like a stream of oil. The light fell upon the rock as though it
were aflame without the sun, which was at my back, being visible. That
was all.