and irritated. She feared she had taken up her
residence in southern Italy quite three centuries too late.

But all that was in the past--heaven be praised for it! Just now she
was her own mistress, at liberty--thanks to the fortune of war--to
comport herself as she pleased and obey any caprice that took her. The
position was ideal in its freedom, while the intrinsic value of it was
enhanced by contrast with recent disagreeable experiences. For the
alarms and deprivations of the siege of Paris were but lately over. She
had come through them unscathed in health and fortune. Yet they had
left their mark. During those months of all-encompassing disappointment
and disaster the eternal laughter--in which she trusted--had rung
harshly sardonic, to the breaking down of self-confidence, and
light-hearted, cynic philosophy. It scared her somewhat. It made her
feel old. It chilled her with suspicion of the actuality of The Four
Last Things--death and judgment, heaven and hell. The power of a merry
scepticism waxed faint amid the scream of shells and long-drawn,
murderous crackle of the _mitrailleuse_. Helen, indeed, became actively
superstitious, thereby falling low in her own self-esteem. She took to
frequenting churches, and spending long, still days with the nuns, her
former teachers, within the convent of the Sacre Coeur. Circumstances
so worked upon her that she made her submission, and was solemnly and
duly received back into the fold of the Church. She confessed ardently,
yet with certain politic reservations. The priest, after all, is but
human. It is only charitable to be considerate of his feelings--so she
argued--and avoid overburdening his conscience, poor dear man, by
blackening your own reputation too violently! The practice of religion
was a help--truly it was, since it served to pass the time. And then,
who could tell but that it might not prove really useful hereafter, as,
when all is said and done, those dread Four Last Things will present
themselves to the mind, in hours of depression with haunting
pertinacity? It is clearly wise, then, to be on the safe side of Holy
Church in these matters, accepting her own assertion that she is very
certainly on the safe side of the Deity.

Yet, notwithstanding her pious exercises, Helen de Vallorbes found
existing circumstances excessively disturbing and disquieting. She was
filled with an immense self-pity. She feared her health was failing.
She became nervously sensible