've only just remembered it!' suddenly cried La Teuse,
who greatly feared that she was going to be beaten. 'His reverence has
to go out to-night. He promised Fortune and Rosalie that he would go to
bless their room, according to the custom. Make haste, Monsieur le Cure!
The Brother will go with you.'

Abbe Mouret had already risen from his chair, and was looking for
his hat. But Brother Archangias, still holding his cards, flew into a
tantrum: 'Oh! don't bother about it,' said he. 'What does it want to
be blessed for that pigsty of theirs? It is a custom that you should do
away with. I can't see any sense in it. Stay here and let us finish the
game. That is much the best thing to do.'

'No,' said the priest, 'I promised to go. Those good people might feel
hurt if I didn't. You stay here and play your game out while you are
waiting for me.'

La Teuse glanced uneasily at Brother Archangias.

'Well, yes, I will stay here,' cried the Brother. 'It is really too
absurd.'

But before Abbe Mouret could open the door, he flung his cards on the
table and rose to follow him. Then half turning back he called to La
Teuse:

'I should have won. Leave the cards as they are, and we will play the
game out to-morrow.'

'Oh! they are all mixed now,' answered the old servant, who had lost no
time in shuffling them together. 'Did you suppose that I was going to
put your hand away under a glass case? And, besides, I might very well
have won, for I still had an ace left.'

A few strides brought Brother Archangias up with Abbe Mouret, who was
walking down the narrow path that led to the village. The Brother had
undertaken the task of keeping watch over the Abbe's movements. He
incessantly played the spy upon him, accompanying him everywhere, or,
if he could not go in person, sending some school urchin to follow
him. With that terrible laugh of his, he was wont to remark that he was
'God's gendarme.'

And, in truth, the Abbe seemed like a culprit ever guarded by the black
shadow of the Brother's cassock; a culprit to be treated distrustfully,
since in his weakness he might well lapse into fresh crime were he left
free from surveillance for a single moment. Thus he was watched and
guarded with all the spiteful eagerness that some jealous old maid
might have displayed, the overreaching zeal of a gaoler who might carry
precautions so far as to exclude even such rays of light as might creep
through the chinks of the prison-house. Brother