ut at hating him,
and above all she felt herself a prey to that repugnance for the useless
cares of the world, to that lassitude of transitory hopes, to that
nostalgia of repose in God, undeniable signs of true vocations.

At the thought that she might, if she survived her father and she
remained free, retire to the 'Dames du Cenacle,' she felt at her
approaching marriage an inward repugnance, which augmented still more
the proof of her future husband's deplorable character. Had she the
right to form such bonds with such feelings? Would it be honorable
to break, without further developments, the betrothal which had been
between her and her father the condition of her baptism? She was already
there, after so few days! And her wound was deeper after the night on
which the Prince had, uttered his careless jests.

"It is permitted you to withdraw," replied Monsieur Guerillot, "but you
are not permitted to lack charity in your judgment."

There was within Fanny too much sincerity, her faith was too simple and
too deep for her not to follow out that advice to the letter, and she
conformed to it in deeds as well as in intentions. For, before taking
a walk in the afternoon with Alba, she took the greatest care to remove
all traces which the little scene of the day before could have left in
her friend's mind. Her efforts went very far. She would ask pardon of
her fiance.... Pardon! For what? For having been wounded by him, wounded
to the depths of her sensibility? She felt that the charity of judgment
recommended by the pious Cardinal was a difficult virtue. It exercises
a discipline of the entire heart, sometimes irreconcilable with the
clearness of the intelligence. Alba looked at her friend with a glance
full of an astonishment, almost sorrowful, and she embraced her, saying:

"Peppino is not worthy even to kiss the ground on which you tread, that
is my opinion, and if he does not spend his entire life in trying to be
worthy of you, it will be a crime."

As for the Prince himself, the impulses which dictated to his fiancee
words of apology when he was in the wrong, were not unintelligible to
him, as they would have been to Hafner. He thought that the latter had
lectured his daughter, and he congratulated himself on having cut short
at once that little comedy of exaggerated religious feeling.

"Never mind that," said he, with condescension, "it is I who have failed
in form. For at heart you have always found me respectful