s me . . ."

Jean-Pierre had surrendered to his wife's mother. Madame Levaille was
a woman of business, known and respected within a radius of at least
fifteen miles. Thick-set and stout, she was seen about the country, on
foot or in an acquaintance's cart, perpetually moving, in spite of her
fifty-eight years, in steady pursuit of business. She had houses in all
the hamlets, she worked quarries of granite, she freighted coasters
with stone--even traded with the Channel Islands. She was broad-cheeked,
wide-eyed, persuasive in speech: carrying her point with the placid and
invincible obstinacy of an old woman who knows her own mind. She very
seldom slept for two nights together in the same house; and the wayside
inns were the best places to inquire in as to her whereabouts. She had
either passed, or was expected to pass there at six; or somebody, coming
in, had seen her in the morning, or expected to meet her that evening.
After the inns that command the roads, the churches were the buildings
she frequented most. Men of liberal opinions would induce small children
to run into sacred edifices to see whether Madame Levaille was there,
and to tell her that so-and-so was in the road waiting to speak to her
about potatoes, or flour, or stones, or houses; and she would curtail
her devotions, come out blinking and crossing herself into the sunshine;
ready to discuss business matters in a calm, sensible way across a table
in the kitchen of the inn opposite. Latterly she had stayed for a few
days several times with her son-in-law, arguing against sorrow and
misfortune with composed face and gentle tones. Jean-Pierre felt the
convictions imbibed in the regiment torn out of his breast--not by
arguments but by facts. Striding over his fields he thought it over.
There were three of them. Three! All alike! Why? Such things did not
happen to everybody--to nobody he ever heard of. One--might pass. But
three! All three. Forever useless, to be fed while he lived and . . .
What would become of the land when he died? This must be seen to. He
would sacrifice his convictions. One day he told his wife--

"See what your God will do for us. Pay for some masses."

Susan embraced her man. He stood unbending, then turned on his heels and
went out. But afterwards, when a black soutane darkened his doorway,
he did not object; even offered some cider himself to the priest.
He listened to the talk meekly; went to mass between the two women;
accomplis