he-Mauprat fashion--if he ever dares to come here
again----"

"That is enough, Bernard," said Edmee. "You make me shudder. Speak
seriously, and tell me what all this means."

When I had informed her of what had happened to the abbe and myself, she
blamed us for not warning her.

"Had I known," she said, "what to expect I should not have been
frightened, and I could have taken care never to be left alone in the
house with my father, and Saint-Jean, who is hardly more active. Now,
however, I am no longer afraid; I shall be on my guard. But the best
thing, Bernard dear, is to avoid all contact with this loathsome man,
and to make him as liberal an allowance as possible to get rid of him.
The abbe is right; he may prove formidable. He knows that our kinship
with him must always prevent us from summoning the law to protect us
against his persecutions; and though he cannot injure us as seriously
as he flatters himself, he can at least cause us a thousand annoyances,
which I am reluctant to face. Throw him gold and let him take himself
off. But do not leave me again, Bernard; you see you have become
absolutely necessary to me; brood no more over the wrong you pretend to
have done me."

I pressed her hand in mine, and vowed never to leave her, though she
herself should order me, until this Trappist had freed the country from
his presence.

The abbe undertook the negotiations with the monastery. He went into
the town the following day, carrying from me a special message to the
Trappist that I would throw him out of the window if he ever took it
into his head to appear at Sainte-Severe again. At the same time I
proposed to supply him with money, even liberally, on condition that
he would immediately withdraw to his convent or to any other secular
or religious retreat he might choose, and that he would never again set
foot in Berry.

The prior received the abbe with all the signs of profound contempt and
holy aversion for his state of heresy. Far from attempting to wheedle
him like myself, he told him that he wished to have nothing to do with
this business, that he washed his hands of it, and that he would confine
himself to conveying the decisions on both sides, and affording a refuge
to Brother Nepomucene, partly out of Christian charity, and partly to
edify his monks by the example of a truly devout man. According to him,
Brother Nepomucene would be the second of that name placed in the front
rank of the heavenly host b