nce, which no one knew how to make
him break, filling the parsonage with his martyrdom and resignation, and
exasperating La Teuse, who, at times, when his back was turned, would
shake her fist at heaven.

This time he was alone now, and need take no care to hide his torment.
Sin had just struck him such an overwhelming blow, that he had not
strength left to move from the altar steps, where he had fallen. He
remained there, sighing, and groaning, parched with agony, incapable of
a single tear. And he thought of the calm unruffled life that had once
been his. Ah! the perfect peace, the full confidence of his first days
at Les Artaud! The path of salvation had seemed so straight and easy
then! He had smiled at the very mention of temptation. He had lived in
the midst of wickedness, without knowledge of it, without fear of it,
certain of being able to withstand it. He had been a model priest, so
pure and chaste, so inexperienced and innocent in God's sight, that God
had led him by the hand like a little child.

But now, all that childlike innocence was dead, God visited him in the
morning, and forthwith tried him. A state of temptation became his life
on earth. Now that full manhood and sin had come upon him, he entered
into the everlasting struggle. Could it be that God really loved him
more now than before? The great saints have all left fragments of their
torn flesh upon the thorns of the way of sorrow. He tried to gather some
consolation from this circumstance. At each laceration of his flesh,
each racking of his bones, he tried to assure himself of some exceeding
great reward. And then, no infliction that Heaven might now cast upon
him could be too heavy. He even looked back with scorn on his former
serenity, his easy fervour, which had set him on his knees with mere
girlish enthusiasm, and left him unconscious even of the bruising of the
hard stones. He strove also to discover pleasure in pain, in plunging
into it, annihilating himself in it. But, even while he poured out
thanks to God, his teeth chattered with growing terror, and the voice of
his rebellious blood cried out to him that this was all falsehood, and
that the only happiness worth desiring was in Albine's arms, amongst the
flowers of the Paradou.

Yet he had put aside Mary for Jesus, sacrificing his heart that he might
subdue his flesh, and hoping to implant some virility in his faith.
Mary disquieted him too much, with her smoothly braided hair, her
ou