rd; after which relief, the Abbe resumed his fitful
striding up and down the box-bordered alley. This lasted until the hour
of twilight, when Augustine, the servant, as soon as the Angelus had
sounded, went to inform her master that they were waiting prayers for him
in the church. He obeyed the summons, although in a somewhat absent mood,
and hurried over the services in a manner which did not contribute to the
edification of the assistants. As soon as he got home, he ate his Supper
without appetite, mumbled his prayers, and shut himself up in the room he
used as a study and workshop. He remained there until the night was far
advanced, searching through his scanty library to find two dusty volumes
treating of "cases of conscience," which he looked eagerly over by the
feeble light of his study lamp. During this laborious search he emitted
frequent sighs, and only left off reading occasionally in order to dose
himself plentifully with snuff. At last, as he felt that his eyes were
becoming inflamed, his ideas conflicting in his brain, and as his lamp
was getting low, he decided to go to bed. But he slept badly, turned over
at least twenty times, and was up with the first streak of day to say his
mass in the chapel. He officiated with more dignity and piety than was
his wont; and after reading the second gospel he remained for a long
while kneeling on one of the steps of the altar. After he had returned to
the sacristy, he divested himself quickly of his sacerdotal robes,
reached his room by a passage of communication, breakfasted hurriedly,
and putting on his three-cornered hat, and seizing his knotty,
cherry-wood cane, he shot out of doors as if he had been summoned to a
fire.

Augustine, amazed at his precipitate departure, went up to the attic,
and, from behind the shelter of the skylight, perceived her master
striding rapidly along the road to Planche-au-Vacher. There she lost
sight of him--the underwood was too thick. But, after a few minutes, the
gaze of the inquisitive woman was rewarded by the appearance of a dark
object emerging from the copse, and defining itself on the bright pasture
land beyond. "Monsieur le Cure is going to La Thuiliere," thought she,
and with this half-satisfaction she descended to her daily occupations.

It was true, the Abbe Pernot was walking, as fast as he could, to the
Vincart farm, as unmindful of the dew that tarnished his shoe-buckles as
of the thorns which attacked his calves. He had