to
burn a fine candle to the Virgin. If it does not succeed, I wash my
hands of the whole business, do you hear? After I had been in hiding in
the secret passage in the keep, and had heard Bernard telling his
valet after supper that he was going out of his mind on account of the
beautiful Edmee, I happened to throw out a suggestion that there might
be a chance here of doing a good stroke of business; and like a fool you
took the matter seriously, and, without consulting me or waiting for a
favourable moment, you went and did a deed that should have been thought
over and properly planned.'

"'A favourable moment, chicken-heart that you are! How the deuce was
I to get one? "Opportunity makes the thief." I find myself surprised
by the hunt in the middle of the forest; I go and hide in that cursed
Gazeau Tower; I see my turtle-doves coming; I overhear a conversation
that might make one die of laughing, and see Bernard blubbering and the
girl playing the haughty beauty; Bernard goes off like an idiot without
showing himself a man; I find on me--God knows how--a rascally pistol
already loaded. Bang! . . .'

"'Hold your tongue, you wild brute!' said the other, quite frightened.
'Do you think a tavern is the proper place to talk of these things?
Keep that tongue quiet, you wretched creature, or I will never see you
again.'

"'And yet you will have to see me, sweet brother mine, when I go and
ring the bell at the gate of the Carmelite monastery.'

"'If you come I will denounce you.'

"'You will not denounce me, for I know too much about you.'

"'I am not afraid. I have given proofs of my repentance; I have
expiated my sins.'

"'Hypocrite!'

"'Come, now, hold your tongue, you madman!' said the other. 'I must
leave you. There is some money.'

"'That all?'

"'What do you expect from a monk? Do you imagine that I am rich?'

"'Your Carmelites are; and you can do what you like with them.'

"'I might give you more, but I would rather not. As soon as you got a
couple of louis you would be off for a debauch, and make enough row to
betray yourself.'

"'And if you want me to quit this part of the country for some time,
what do you suppose I am to travel with?'

"'Three times already I have given you enough to take you away, haven't
I? And each time you have come back, after drinking it all in the
first place of ill-fame on the frontier of the province! Your impudence
sickens me, after the evidence given against you, when