The summer passed away, and Abbé Faujas seemed in no hurry to derive any advantage from his increasing popularity. He still kept himself in seclusion at the Mourets\', delighting in the solitude of the garden, to which he now came down during the day-time. He read his breviary as he slowly walked with bent head up and down the green arbour at the far end. Sometimes he would close his book, still further slacken his steps, and seem to be buried in deep reverie. Mouret, who used to watch him, at last became impatient and irritated at seeing that black figure walking to and fro for hours together behind his fruit-trees.

\'One has no privacy left,\' he muttered. \'I can\'t lift my eyes now without catching sight of that cassock. He is like a crow, that fellow there, with his round eyes that always seem to be on the look-out for something. I don\'t believe in his fine disinterested airs.\'

[Pg 108]

It was not till early in September that the Home of the Virgin was completed. In the provinces workmen are painfully slow; though it must be stated that the lady patronesses had twice upset Monsieur Lieutaud\'s designs in favour of ideas of their own. When the committee took possession of the building they rewarded the architect for the complaisance he had manifested by lavishing the highest praises upon him. Everything seemed to them perfectly satisfactory. The rooms were large, the communications were excellent, and there was a courtyard planted with trees and embellished with two small fountains. Madame de Condamin was particularly charmed with the fa?ade, which was one of her own ideas. Over the door, the words \'Home of the Virgin\' were carved in gold letters on a slab of black marble.

On the occasion of the opening of the Home there was a very affecting ceremony. The Bishop, attended by the Chapter, came in person to install the Sisters of Saint Joseph, who had been authorised to work the institution. A troop of some fifty girls of from eight to fifteen years of age had been collected together from the streets of the old quarter of the town, and all that had been required from the parents to obtain admission for their children had been a declaration that their avocations necessitated their absence from home during the entire day. Monsieur Delangre made a speech which was much applauded. He explained at considerable length, and in a magnificent style, the details and arrangements of this new refuge, which he called \'the school of virtue and labour, where young and interesting creatures would be kept safe from wicked temptations.\' A delicate allusion, towards the end of the speech, to the real promoter of the Home, Abbé Faujas, attracted much notice. The Abbé was present amongst the other priests, and his fine, grave face remained perfectly calm and tranquil when all eyes were turned upon him. Marthe blushed on the platform, where she was sitting in the midst of the lady patronesses.

When the ceremony was over, the Bishop expressed a desire to inspect the building in every detail; and, notwithstanding the evident annoyance of Abbé Fenil, he sent for Abbé Faujas, whose big black eyes had never for a moment quitted him, and requested him to be good enough to act as his guide, adding aloud with a smile, that he was sure he could not find a better one. This little speech was circulated amongst the departing spectators, and in the evening all[Pg 109] Plassans commented upon the Bishop\'s favourable demeanour towards Abbé Faujas.

The lady patronesses had reserved for themselves one of the rooms in the Home. Here they provided a collation for the Bishop, who ate a biscuit and drank two sips of Malaga, while saying a polite word or two to each of them. This brought the pious festival to a happy conclusion, for both before and during the ceremony there had been heart-burnings and rivalries among the ladies, whom the delicate praises of Monseigneur Rousselot quite restored to good humour. When they were left to themselves, they declared that everything had gone off exceedingly well, and they profusely praised the Bishop. Madame Paloque alone looked sour. The prelate had somehow forgotten her when he was distributing his compliments.

\'You were quite right,\' she said in a fury to her husband, when she got home again; \'I have just been made a convenience in that silly nonsense of theirs. It\'s a fine idea, indeed, to bring all those corrupt hussies together. I have given up all my time to them, and that big simpleton of a Bishop, who trembles before his own clergy, can\'t even say thank you. Just as if that Madame de Condamin had done anything, indeed. She is far too much occupied in showing off her dresses! Ah! we know quite enough about her, don\'t we? The world will hear something about her one of these days that will surprise it a little! Thank goodness, we\'ve nothing to conceal. And that Madame Delangre and Madame Rastoil, too—well, it wouldn\'t be difficult to tell tales about them that would cover them with blushes! And they never stirred out of their drawing-rooms, they haven\'t taken half the trouble about the matter that I have! Then there\'s that Madame Mouret, with her pretence of managing the whole business, though she really did nothing but hang on to the cassock of her Abbé Faujas! She\'s another hypocrite of whom we shall hear some pretty things one of these days! And yet they could all get a polite speech, while there wasn\'t a word for me! I\'m nothing but a mere convenience, they treat me like a dog! But things sha\'n\'t go on like this, Paloque, I tell you. The dog will turn and bite them before long!\'

From that time forward Madame Paloque showed herself much less accommodating. She became very irregular in her secretarial work, and declined to perform any duties that[Pg 110] she did not fancy, till at last the lady patronesses began to talk of employing a paid secretary. Marthe mentioned these worries to Abbé Faujas and asked him if he could recommend a suitable man.

\'Don\'t trouble yourself to look for anyone,\' he said, \'I dare say I can find you a fit person. Give me two or three days.\'

For some time past he had been frequently receiving letters bearing the Besan?on postmark, They were all in the same handwriting, a large, ugly hand. Rose, who took them up to him, remarked that he seemed vexed at the mere sight of the envelopes.

\'He looks quite put out,\' she said. \'You may depend upon it that it\'s no great favourite of his who writes to him so often.\'

Mouret\'s old curiosity was roused by this correspondence. One day he took up one of the letters himself with a pleasant smile, telling the Abbé, as an excuse for his own appearance, that Rose was not in the house. The Abbé probably saw through Mouret\'s cunning, for he assumed an expression of great pleasure, as though he had been impatiently expecting the letter. But Mouret did not allow himself to be deceived by this piece of acting, he stayed outside the door on the landing and glued his ear to the key-hole.

\'From your sister again, isn\'t it?\' asked Madame Faujas, in her hard voice. \'Why does she worry you in that way?\'

There was a short silence, after which came a sound of paper being roughly crumpled, and the Abbé said, with evident displeasure:

\'It\'s always the same old story. She wants to come to us and bring her husband with her, so that we may get him a situation somewhere. She seems to think that we are wallowing in gold. I\'m afraid they will be doing something rash—perhaps taking us by surprise some fine morning.\'

\'No, no! we can\'t do with them here, Ovide!\' his mother replied. \'They have never liked you; they have always been jealous of you. Trouche is a scamp and Olympe is quite heartless. They would want everything for themselves, and they would compromise you and interfere with your work.\'

Mouret was too much excited by the meanness of the act he was committing to be able to hear well, and, besides, he thought that one of them was coming to the door, so he[Pg 111] hurried away. He took care not to mention what he had done. A few days later Abbé Faujas, in his presence, while they were all out on the terrace, gave Marthe a definite reply respecting the Secretaryship at the Home.

\'I think I can recommend you a suitable person,\' he said, in his calm way. \'It is a connection of my own, my brother-in-law, who is coming here from Besan?on in a few days.\'

Mouret became very attentive, while Marthe appeared delighted.

\'Oh, that is excellent!\' she exclaimed. \'I was feeling very much bothered about finding a suitable person. You see, with all those young girls, we must have a person of unexceptionable morality, but of course a connection of yours—\'

\'Yes, yes,\' interrupted the priest; \'my sister had a little hosiery business at Besan?on, which she has been obliged to give up on account of her health; and now she is anxious to join us again, as the doctors have ordered her to live in the south. My mother is very much pleased.\'

\'I\'m sure she must be,\' said Marthe. \'I dare say it grieved you very much to have to separate, and you will be very glad to be together again. I\'ll tell you what you must do. There are a couple of rooms upstairs that you don\'t use; why shouldn\'t your sister and her husband have them? They have no children, have they?\'

\'No, there are only their two selves. I had, indeed, thought for a moment of giving them those two rooms; but I was afraid of displeasing you by bringing other people into your house.\'

\'Not at all, I assure you. You are very quiet people.\'

She checked herself suddenly, for her husband was tugging at her dress. He did not want to have the Abbé\'s relations in the house, for he remembered in what terms Madame Faujas had spoken of her daughter and son-in-law.

\'The rooms are very small,\' he began; \'and Monsieur l\'Abbé would be inconvenienced. It would be better for all parties that his sister should take lodgings somewhere else; there happen to be some rooms vacant just now at the Paloques\' house, over the way.\'

There was a dead pause in the conversation. The priest said nothing, but gazed up into the sky. Marthe thought he was offended, and she felt much distressed at her husband\'s bluntness. After a moment she could no longer endure the embarrassing silence. \'Well, it\'s settled then,\' she said,[Pg 112] without any attempt at skill in knitting the broken threads of the conversation together again, \'Rose shall help your mother to clean the rooms. My husband was only thinking about your own personal convenience; but, of course, if you wish it, it is not for us to prevent you from disposing of the rooms in any way you like.\'

Mouret was quite angry when he again found himself alone with his wife.

\'I can\'t understand you at all!\' he cried. \'When first I let the rooms to the Abbé, you were quite displeased, and seemed to hate the thought of having even so much as a cat brought into the house; and now I believe you would be perfectly willing for the Abbé to bring the whole of his relations, down to his third and fourth cousins. Didn\'t you feel me tugging at your dress? You might have known that I didn\'t want those people. They are not very respectable folks.\'

\'How do you know that?\' cried Marthe, annoyed by this accusation. \'Who told you so?\'

\'Who, indeed? It was Abbé Faujas himself. I overheard him one day while he was talking to his mother.\'

She looked at him keenly; and he blushed slightly beneath her gaze as he stammered:

\'Well, it is sufficient that I do know. The sister is a heartless creature and her husband is a scamp. It\'s of no use your putting on that air of insulted majesty; those were their own words, and I\'m inventing nothing. I don\'t want to have those people here, do you understand? The old lady herself was the first to object to her daughter coming here. The Abbé now seems to have changed his mind. I don\'t know what has led him to alter his opinion. It\'s some fresh mystery of his. He\'s going to make use of them somehow.\'

Marthe shrugged her shoulders and allowed her husband to rail on. He told Rose not to clean the rooms, but Rose now only obeyed her mistress\'s orders. For five days his anger vented itself in bitter words and furious recriminations. In Abbé Faujas\'s presence he confined himself to sulking, for he did not dare to attack the priest openly. Then, as usual, he ended by submitting, and ceased to rail at the people who were coming. But he drew his purse-strings still tighter, isolated himself, shut himself up more and more in his own selfish existence. When the Trouches arrived one October evening, he merely exclaimed:

[Pg 113]

\'The deuce! they don\'t look a nice couple. What faces they have!\'

Abbé Faujas did not appear very desirous that his sister and brother-in-law should be seen on that occasion. His mother took up a position by the street-door, and as soon as she caught sight of them turning out of the Place of the Sub-Prefecture, she glanced uneasily behind her into the hall and the kitchen. Luck was, however, against her, for just as the Trouches arrived, Marthe, who was going out, came up from the garden, followed by her children.

\'Ah! there you all are!\' she said, with a pleasant smile.

Madame Faujas, who was generally so completely mistress of herself, could not suppress a slight show of confusion as she stammered a word or two of reply. For some moments they stood confronting and scrutinising each other in the hall. Mouret had hurriedly mounted the steps and Rose had taken up her position at the kitchen door.

\'You must be very glad to be together again,\' said Marthe, addressing Madame Faujas.

Then, noticing the feeling of embarrassment which was keeping them all silent, she turned towards Trouche and added:

\'You arrived by the five o\'clock train, I suppose? How long were you in getting here from Besan?on?\'

\'Seventeen hours in the train,\' Trouche replied, opening a toothless mouth. \'It is no joke that, in a third-class carriage, I can tell you. One gets pretty well shaken up inside.\'

Then he laughed with a peculiar clattering of his jaws. Madame Faujas cast a very angry glance at him, and he began to fumble mechanically at his greasy overcoat, trying to fasten a button that was no longer there, and pressing to his thighs (doubtless in order to hide some stains) a couple of cardboard bonnet-boxes which he was carrying, one green and the other yellow. His red throat was perpetually gurgling beneath a twisted, ragged black neckcloth, over which appeared the edge of a dirty shirt. In his wrinkled face, which seemed to reek with vice, there glistened two little black eyes that rolled about incessantly, examining everybody and everything with an expression of astonishment and covetousness. They looked like the eyes of a thief studying a house to which he means to return in order to plunder it some night.

Mouret fancied that Trouche was examining the fastenings.

[Pg 114]

\'That fellow,\' he thought to himself, \'looks as though he were getting the patterns of the locks into his head!\'

Olympe was c............