on the offering.

"Was I not right," she asked, "if it was my crown, to take it from the
wall where it has hung so long?

"Of what use are these remains? Brigitte la Rose is no more, nor the
flowers that baptized her." She went out. I heard her sobs, and the door
closed on me; I fell on my knees and wept bitterly. When I returned to
her room, I found her waiting for me; dinner was ready. I took my place
in silence, and not a word was said of what was in our hearts.

CHAPTER V. A TORTURED SOUL

It was Mercanson who had repeated in the village and in the chateau my
conversation with him about Dalens and the suspicions that, in spite of
myself, I had allowed him clearly to see. Every one knows how bad news
travels in the provinces, flying from mouth to mouth and growing as it
flies; that is what had happened in this case.

Brigitte and I found ourselves face to face with each other in a
new position. However feebly she may have tried to flee, she had
nevertheless made the attempt. It was on account of my prayers that
she remained; there was an obligation implied. I was under oath not
to grieve her either by my jealousy or my levity; every thoughtless or
mocking word that escaped me was a sin, every sorrowful glance from her
was a reproach acknowledged and merited.

Her simple good-nature gave a charm even to solitude; she could see
me now at all hours without resorting to any precaution. Perhaps she
consented to this arrangement in order to prove to me that she valued
her love more highly than her reputation; she seemed to regret having
shown that she cared for the representations of malice. At any rate,
instead of making any attempt to disarm criticism or thwart curiosity,
we lived the freest kind of life, more regardless of public opinion than
ever.

For some time I kept my word, and not a cloud troubled our life. These
were happy days, but it is not of these that I would speak.

It was said everywhere about the country that Brigitte was living
publicly with a libertine from Paris; that her lover ill-treated her,
that they spent their time quarrelling, and that she would come to a bad
end. As they had praised Brigitte for her conduct in the past, so they
blamed her now. There was nothing in her past life, even, that was
not picked to pieces and misrepresented. Her lonely tramps over the
mountains, when engaged in works of charity, suddenly became the subject
of quibbles and of raillery. They spoke of her