himself might be upon us.'

'Poor child! You men little heed how you make a woman suffer.'

'How, Reverend Mother! you pleading for a heretic marriage, that would
give our rights to a Huguenot--what say I?--an English renegade!'

'I plead not, brother. The injustice towards you must be repaired; but
I have a certain love for my niece, and I fear she will be heartbroken
when she learns the truth, the poor child.'

'Bah! The Abbess should rejoice in thus saving her soul! How if her
heretic treated Bellaise like the convents of England?'

'No threats, brother. As a daughter of Ribaumont and a mother of the
Church will I stand by you,' said the Abbess with dignity.

'And now tell me how it has been with the child. I have not seen her
since we agreed that the request did but aggravate her. You said her
health was better since her nurse had been so often with her, and that
she had ceased from her austerities.'

'Not entirely; for when first she came, in her transports of despair and
grief on finding Soeur Monique removed, she extorted from Father Bonami
a sort of hope that she might yet save her husband's, I mean the Baron's
soul. Then, truly, it was a frenzy of fasts and prayers. Father Bonami
has made his profit, and so have the fathers of Chollet--all her money
has gone in masses, and in alms to purchase the prayers of the poor,
and she herself fasting on bread and water, kneeling barefooted in the
chapel till she was transfixed with cold. No _chaufferette_, not she!
Obstinate to the last degree! Tell her she would die--it was the best
news one could bring; all her desire, to be in a more rigid house with
Soeur Monique at Lucon. At length, Mere Perrine and Veronique found her
actually fainting and powerless with cold on the chapel-floor; and since
that time she has been more reasonable. There are prayers as much as
ever; but the fancy to kill herself with fasting has passed. She begins
to recover her looks, nay, sometimes I have thought she had an air of
hope in her eyes and lips; but what know I? I have much to occupy me,
and she persists in shutting herself up with her woman.'

'You have not allowed her any communication from without?'

'Mere Perrine has come and gone freely; but she is nothing. No, the
child could have no correspondence. She did, indeed, write a letter to
the Queen, as you know, brother, six weeks ago; but that has never been
answered, nor could any letters have harmed you, since it is only now