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 Village priest / 
 
 3 1924 027 277 023 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027277023 
 
Library of Qontinental Authors 
 
 A VILLAGE PRIEST 
 
 HENRI CAUVAIN^ 
 
 
 N;i^' 
 
 LONDON AND NEW YORK 
 
 Frederick Warne and Co. 
 
PUBLISHERS' ANNOUNCEMENT. 
 
 The increasing demand in this Country for the Writings 
 of some of the greatest Continental Authors induces us to 
 undertake the publication of several of the best known 
 ^Vorks of such Authors, under the title of the 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONTINENTAL LITERATURE. 
 
 We have, therefore, made arrangements for the SOLE 
 COPYRIGHT in the English Language of certain notable 
 Foreign Novels, the present volume being the ninth of the 
 Series. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRI CAUVAIN 
 
 frmtsInW fiom ilje Jfitwlj 
 
 BY 
 
 ALBERT D. VANDAM 
 
 AUTHOR OF "AN EKGLlSHiMAN IN PARIS." 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 FREDERICK WARNE AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK. 
 
 & - U U Iv Is! I 
 

 J\(eOQ%l-^ 
 
 vric- n.HViHU 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 My Dear Tree, — The pleasant recollection of our long 
 friendship has, to a certain extent, prompted me to dedicate 
 this translation to you. My main motive, however, was to thank 
 you for having been the practical pioneer of a principle I advo- 
 cated when I had the honour to be a dramatic critic. 
 
 In the plays you have hitherto produced you have virtually 
 left Frenchmen and Germans and other foreigners in their habit 
 as they live, instead of foolishly transforming them into Englibh- 
 men in deference to a mistaken dramatic exclusivism which thinks 
 humanity out of England not worth studying, or ilhistrating, 
 and which, moreover, is subversive of all dramatic art. For 
 having set this prejudice at naught, the public and the dramatic 
 student are already greatly indebted to you ; and it is to show 
 what may really be done in the way of sterling adaptation by the 
 skilful playwright, backed up by the intellectual and artistic actor- 
 manager, that I translated the original story on which "A Village 
 Priest" is founded, and that I am delighted to associate your name 
 with my work. 
 
 Believe me, my dear Tree, 
 
 Yours very cordially, 
 
 ALBERT D. VANDAM. 
 
 To H. Beerbohm-Tree, Esq. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 As a rule, a preface to a novel is a mistake. A 
 story that wants explaining is not a work of literary- 
 art. In this instance, however, the play and the 
 story upon which it is founded are so widely different 
 as to need a word of warning on the translator's 
 part, lest the public should get puzzled as to which 
 is the original, both being equally powerful. The 
 first original is M. Cauvain's, who based his narra- 
 tive on a celebrated trial that took place in Brittany 
 late in the forties ; the second original is Mr. Sydney 
 Grundy's, who based his play upon an episode in 
 the life of one of the Fathers of the Church — St. 
 John Nepomucene's, I believe — which episode was 
 barely indicated by M. Caiivain. After this he took 
 one idea from the French author, a great many very 
 original ideas of his own, and made an excellent 
 play of the whole. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " And this, my dear Andr^, is the room in which I 
 work and see my dients." 
 
 The self-satisfied stress of Armand d'Arcay's words 
 brought a smile to the lips of Andr^ Gerard, his old 
 schoolfellow whom, for the last hour, he had been 
 showing over the new house his mother had built at 
 Rennes. 
 
 They were standing in a large square room with a high 
 ceiling, which got its light from a window hung with 
 old tapestry curtains. 
 
 Andr6 Gerard, accustomed to the bare and white- 
 washed walls of his modest studio, gazed with respectful 
 admiration at the somewhat too comfortable quarters of 
 the friend of his childhood. 
 
 But in another moment his free-and-easy tempera- 
 ment, rather inclined to sarcasm, got the upper 
 hand. 
 
 " In fact," he said, " you are lodged like a Minister 
 of State. Here's the chair of the despoiled orphan, and 
 the arm-chair of the wronged widow. Nay more, there 
 stands the sofa in the event of the widow being young 
 and pretty." 
 
 And the walls of the somewhat prim room rang with 
 his frank laughter. 
 
 Then they sat down to talk. They had so much 
 to tell one another. They had not seen one another for 
 the last fifteen years. They were mere children when 
 they parted. 
 
2 A VILLAGE PRIEST, 
 
 One day Madame d'Arcay had laid her hand on 
 her son's head and told him, "You know that your 
 little friend is gone." 
 
 The boy had left off playing there and then ; he 
 felt heavy at heart, and two big tears had courseci 
 down his cheeks. 
 
 "But 1 had not forgotten you," said Armand, 
 holding out his hand to his friend, after having re- 
 minded him of the episode. "You were my best 
 crony in those days. Do you remember the mag- 
 nificent men you used to draw for me ? Since then 
 I have often thought of you. I knew that you had 
 been sent to the other end of France, to a college 
 where the Government had given you a purse by 
 
 virtue of your being the orphan of a soldier 
 
 but I never expected to see you at Rennes after so 
 many years." 
 
 I " You may be sure of one thing ; it is not home- 
 sickness that brings me back. For, with the excep- 
 tion of the pleasant recollections of our rambles in 
 your father's big park, my wretched and poverty- 
 stricken childhood has left but a sad impression on 
 my mind. I have come for a small legacy an old 
 aunt of mine was kind enough to leave me, as I told 
 you just now. But the moment I have fulfilled the 
 necessary formalities, I am off to Paris, where I 
 hope you'll join me one of these days. You cannot 
 possibly wish to spend your life in this provincial 
 hole. All you can hope for here is a few ridiculous 
 lawsuits. You'll lead an existence without any 
 ideal, without any interest, without any excitement ; 
 in short, you'll simply vegetate." 
 
 There was a knowing smile on Armand's face. 
 
 " I am very happy here," he said, " and I haven't 
 the least intention of leaving Rennes." 
 
 The quick glance of the painter went 
 straight to his friend's soul, that pure, noble and 
 candid soul, that floated into his handsome dark 
 eyes. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 3 
 
 " Ho, ho," he said, very quietly ; if it is a case of 
 love, that's another thing, and we'll say no more about 
 it." 
 
 " But you have not heard me say that . . . ." 
 expostulated Armand, turning crimson all of a 
 sudden. 
 
 " If you have not told me so before, you are assuredly 
 telling me so now," said the mischievous artist, pointing 
 to the young barrister's red face. 
 
 " I have no wish to leave my mqther," said Armand, 
 after a short pause. " And my mother wishes to remain 
 at Rennes. She has just had this house built, no doubt 
 to please herself a bit, but a great deal more to please 
 me, for I am to live in it by myself part of the time. 
 You know how fond she is of her country house at 
 Mesnil. She intends to spend the spring and summer 
 months there. There are some dear memories con- 
 nected with the place." 
 
 The young men kept silent for a little while. 
 Armand's last words had been accompanied by a deep 
 sigh, and his eyes drooped with a look of sadness in 
 them. Andr6 glanced at him, somewhat embarrassed, 
 not daring to put a question which was evidently upper- 
 most in his mind. 
 
 At last, plucking up courage, he said, though rather 
 timidly : " I have not said a word about your father. I 
 did not dare to touch upon so painful a subject. It 
 is all over, is it not ? " 
 
 " Yes, Andrd, my poor father died three years ago 
 after a terrible agony of fifteen years. Alas, he never 
 recovered his reason, and he died without recognising 
 either my mother or myself" 
 
 " I remember your father, a tall, dark man, with a 
 cold, stern eye, the very glance of which made you 
 quake from head to foot. I recollect having my pocket 
 full of marbles one day. All at once, he pulled 
 me abruptly towards him, took me between his 
 knees, that gripped like a vice, and began to ques- 
 tion me with such persistency, plying me with 
 
4 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 such pointed questions, that at last I confessed to 
 having stolen the marbles. Still, I swear to you . 
 that it was not true." 
 
 "Yes," said Armand with a rather sad smile; 
 "my father, it would appear, was a matchless 
 examining magistrate. But it was that very zeal, 
 that restless craving to he doing that killed him." 
 
 The loud clanging of a bell put a stop to the 
 young men's conversation. 
 
 " Breakfast," said Armand, rising from his chair. 
 <' Come along, I'll take 3'ou to my mother ; she'll be 
 delighted to see you again." 
 
 " And I shall be pleased to embrace her once 
 more, as in days gone by, provided she'll allow me." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Madame d'Arcay was already in the large dining- 
 room on the ground floor when the two young men 
 entered. She was not alone. A handsome young 
 girl was arranging flowers in a big vase a few steps 
 away. * 
 
 At the sound of the door being opened she turned 
 round. And when she caught sight of Armand, 
 she blushed. 
 
 " Of course," said Andre Gerard to himself, and 
 then he added mentally, " Our friend Armand has 
 certainly got good taste." 
 
 In fact it would have been difficult to find a hand- 
 somer and more graceful creature than Marguerite 
 de Tremeillan, and Gerard was fully justified in men- 
 tally congratulating Armand, who had succeeded in 
 winning the young girl's affections. 
 
 Marguerite had run to Armand and. had taken 
 both his hands in hers before she was aware that 
 there was a stranger in the room. She stepped back, 
 somewhat surprised, and blushed a second time. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 5 
 
 '^' My dear Marguerite," said Armand ; "let me 
 introduce to you one of my oldest friends, a friend 
 of my childhood. Monsieur Gerard, who is going to 
 stay with us for a few days." 
 
 Then turning to the young artist, he said — 
 
 " Mademoiselle de Tremeillan, my intended wife." 
 
 There was so sincere, such an emotional ring 
 about the words that Gerard himself felt moved. 
 
 The worthy young fellow was one of those artless 
 natures that fall down and worship the blind god 
 whenever and wherever they meet with him. And 
 he guessed that this young couple loved one another 
 with all their soul. 
 
 "Mademoiselle," he said; "I have a good mind 
 to scold Armand. We have been chatting away for 
 these two hours and he has not mentioned a word 
 about that which should interest him most." 
 
 " He has not said a word about me, has he ? " 
 
 And the young girl shook her finger reproachfully 
 at Armand. 
 
 " I wanted to give him a surprise, my dear 
 Marguerite." 
 
 " Say rather that you are too timid to " 
 
 " To admit my own happiness. Well, there is 
 some truth in that. I can scarcely believe that you 
 really consent to be my wife. It is like a dream, 
 like a miraculous event which I can scarcely realise." 
 
 And Armand, confused like a child, looked down, 
 and ilared not go near her. 
 
 " WeH, yes, I love you very much," she said 
 cheerfully, going up to him and putting both hands 
 on his shoulders. " Now, I have let out the secret. 
 Does that satisfy j'ou, and will you leave ofl 
 being afraid to acknowledge me to your friends ? " 
 
 In answer to all these questions Armand merely 
 caught both her hands and raised them fervently to 
 his lips, while Andre told himself for the second 
 time that his friend was a very happy fellow to be 
 loved by this beautiful and charming girl. 
 
6 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 "Come, my love birds," interrupted Madame 
 d'Arcay, "let us have done with poesy for the 
 moment and turn to prose, if you do not mind. Let 
 us sit down ; Monsieur Andre, you have scarcely said 
 ' How do you do ' to me. " 
 
 Andre was full of apologies. The fact was that 
 Mademoiselle de Tr6meillan's beauty had almost 
 made him forget Madame d'Arcay, who had been 
 standing a little way off. 
 
 To repair his error he stepped up to her, and as in 
 days gone by held up both cheeks, which she kissed 
 affectionately. 
 
 The breakfast was very animated, and a visitor 
 having called before it was fairly over, Madame 
 d'Arcay was obliged to go to the drawing-room with 
 Marguerite. The j'oung men went to smoke their 
 cigars in the garden. 
 
 They had been there but a few minutes when a 
 servant came up to Armand. 
 
 " What is it, Baptiste ? " asked the young fellow. 
 
 " There is someone outside who wishes to speak 
 to monsieur," said the old servitor, pointiiig to the 
 front gate, behind which, in fact, stood a dark, 
 indistinct figure. 
 
 " Very well, let the person come in." 
 
 " Yes, Monsieur, but " 
 
 " But what ? " 
 
 " The man looks very disreputable." 
 
 " What does he want with me ? " 
 
 " He wants to see monsieur on business, about a 
 lawsuit." 
 
 " By all that's good," exclaimed Armand, turning 
 to his friend, who having stopped behind had not 
 heard the words spoken in almost a whisper of the 
 old servant. " A client, my boy ; my first client." 
 
 " Really ? " said Gerard. " I should like to have a 
 look at that happy person who will be the first occu- 
 pant of that magnificent yellow armchair, with the 
 paternal eye of the Demosthenes upon him. At 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 7 
 
 any rate, is it what you would term a client of conse- 
 quence ? " 
 
 Old Baptiste made a significant grimace. 
 
 " No ? That's a pity. But, after all, it is not a 
 question of money with young Maltre d'Arcay." 
 
 The gate swung on its hinge, and a man appeared 
 in the opening. The client was probably getting 
 impatient. 
 
 " H'm," said Gerard, after having glanced at 
 him. " I would sooner meet him by daylight 
 than at night in a wood. What . a dreadful face. 
 This, my boy," taking in the stranger from head to 
 toe, " this is a criminal affair, if ever there was one. 
 I wish you joy, Armand ; it is better than one of 
 those civil suits over which everyone falls asleep, 
 judges and counsel alike. What you want is the 
 Assize Courts, magnificent speeches, noble senti- 
 ments, and so on. As for that matter, it would suit 
 me very well also. lought to have gone in for the Bar," 
 he wound up, sawing the air with his two long arms. 
 
 " I'll see that man," said Armand. "Show him 
 upstairs, Baptiste. There is no necessity for the 
 ladies to see him. In fact, he might frighten them. 
 Take him by the back staircase." 
 
 Baptiste nodded respectfully, went up to the 
 stranger, with whom he disappeared through a door 
 leading to the back staircase. 
 
 Armand asked his friend to excuse him, lightly ran 
 up the stairs leading to the house, and entered his 
 own room to receive his first client. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 He had scarcely settled himself at his writing- 
 table when the door was opened, and the man stood 
 on the threshold. Baptiste had retired after having 
 ghown him in. 
 
8 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 The stranger stood stockstill for a moment, looking 
 around him with a dazed look. He was evidently 
 trying to pull himself together, and the dust with 
 which his clothes were covered showed that he had 
 come a long way, and walked quickly. 
 
 Armand pointed to a chair, but the stranger ap- 
 peared to take no notice of this invitation. 
 
 " Sit down, friend," said the young barrister, 
 somewhat surprised at the man's strange behaviour. 
 
 Then, and then only, the man slowly took off the 
 battered hat he wore. He mopped the perspiration 
 from off his face, deposited his stick in a corner, and 
 seated himself close to Armand's writing-table. 
 
 He made an attempt to speak, but the words 
 stuck in his throat. With an unsteady stand he 
 undid the kind of twisted rope that did duty as a 
 cravat, and then he made a sign, intimating that he 
 was thirsty. 
 
 It is probable that with any other barrister but 
 Armand d'Arcay, such a personage would have been 
 quickly shown the door. But Armand was young, 
 and good-natured to a fault ; the man was his first 
 client, and there was, besides, something strange 
 and mysterious about him v/hich roused the barrister's 
 curiosity. 
 
 So he got up and went to a small table on which 
 stood a tray and glasses, and brought the stranger 
 one of the latter, into which he had poured pretty 
 well half of a small flagon of brandy. 
 
 The stranger gulped it down at one draught, and 
 a scarcely audible, " thank you " came from his lips. 
 
 _" And now, friend," said Armand ; " tell me what 
 brings you here." 
 
 The stranger made another attempt to speak, and 
 this time he succeeded, but his voice was so low and 
 weak that Armand was compelled to lean forward in 
 order to hear what he said. 
 
 " Monsieur," the stranger began ; " I have come 
 to you to help me to get justice. It is not an 
 
A village; priest. 9 
 
 ordinary affair. I am not a peasant asking you to plead 
 against a neighbour. Nor am I, as you might be led 
 to suppose by my ragged clothes, a beggar who has been 
 in trouble with the gendarmerie. 
 
 " I am, Monsieur, an honest man who has just left 
 a convict prison, where he has spent twenty years of 
 his life, and who wishes his honour re-established. 
 I am an innocent man who wants his innocence 
 proved." 
 
 The dull voice of the stranger had become clear; 
 he spoke the last words with great firmness, drew himself 
 up, and placed his clenched fist energetically on the 
 ledge of the barrister's writing-table. 
 
 Armand felt rather moved by this beginning, and still 
 more curious to know who the stranger was, and what the 
 story he was going to relate to him. In spite of his 
 youth and inexperience he was aware that all criminals 
 invariably profess their innocence and accuse the judges 
 who sentenced them. 
 
 But in this instance the affirmation to that effect was 
 singularly clear and imposing. 
 
 The stranger seemed to have foreseen the barrister's 
 suspicion. 
 
 " Monsieur,'' he said, " I want you to take an 
 interest in my case. I beseech you to believe me 
 innocent. If you cannot listen to me, tell me so, 
 and I will go to some one else. But I must have 
 justice. The moment I arrived in this town, without 
 even waiting to take the necessary rest after a thirty 
 miles' march under a scorching sun, without wasting 
 time to have something to eat and to drink, though 
 I am nearly faint with hunger and thirst, without 
 even inquiring in the neighbourhood whether a 
 poor girl I left behind \o go to prison be alive 
 or dead, I asked some one to show me the 
 residence of a barrister. They showed me yours ; 
 I have not even asked your name, but came as 
 fast as my legs would carry me, and here I am. 
 The day for which I have been waiting for the 
 
 c 
 
10 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 last twenty years — do you understand, Monsieur — for 
 twenty years, has come. I am under the impression 
 that 1 shall be able to prove my innocence now, that 
 I shall be happy once more, that all my sufferings will 
 be forgotten. Yes, Monsieur, you have the power to 
 do all this. You can give me more than life. I 
 beseech you listen to me and to have pity on me. Do 
 not treat me as a miserable outcast. I swear to you 
 that beneath these poor clothes, beneath this rep-jl- 
 lent and sinister appearance there is an honest man, 
 and that honest man. Monsieur, beseeches you on 
 his knees." 
 
 And the stranger clasped his hands on the ledge 
 of the table and leant his head upon them. 
 
 Armand watched him intently for a moment or so. 
 He felt strangely overcome, but still would not 
 allow himself to be carried away. He tried to re- 
 main unmoved confronted by this grief, which was 
 no doubt only a well-enacted comedy. 
 
 He had been brought up with such respect for the 
 magistracy, the recollection of his father appealed to 
 him as so lofty a personification of inflexible justice, 
 that he could not admit the possibility of an error of 
 the law. The stranger rose from his seat and looked 
 fixedly at the young barrister. He drew a long, deep 
 sigh and shook his head, which was perfectly white. 
 
 " Ah, Monsieur," he said despondently ; " it is very 
 difficult for people who are down in the world 
 to inspire confidence. Besides, I never made 
 myself any illusions about the difficulties that stood 
 in my path. I know that all criminals make them- 
 selves out innocent. All my fellow-prisoners swore 
 that the judges had made a mistake in condemnint' 
 them." " 
 
 " I am aware of it," said Armand, with a look 
 conveying that he was on his guard against being too 
 confiding. 
 
 " But I swear to you that they made an error in 
 my case," exclaimed the stranger. " I swear to 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. II 
 
 you, . Monsieur, that I am an innocent, unfortunate 
 man, and that I deserve your pity." 
 _ "Well, tell me your story," said Armand, lean- 
 ing back in his arm-chair. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " My story can be told in a few words," said the 
 stranger, after having sat silent for a few moments. 
 My parents belonged to these parts, and were 
 much respected. My father's name was Pierre 
 Torquenie." 
 
 "You are Jean Torquenie ? " exclaimed Armand. 
 
 "Yes," said the stranger, with great surprise. 
 " Do you know me ? " 
 
 " I have heard people speak of your trial, which 
 caused a great deal of excitement at the time. You 
 assassinated Viscount de Mortr^e, and you poisoned 
 your wife." 
 
 "Yes, that's what I was sentenced for," said the 
 man very bitterly. " If you know that story there is 
 no need for me to go over it again." 
 
 " I know, in fact, every particular of it," said 
 Armand. 
 
 And, after a short pause, he went on, " I even 
 warn you that you will have great difficulty in con- 
 vincing me of your innocence, for I know better than 
 anybody that the prosecution was admirably con- 
 ducted, that the examining magistrate did his duty 
 to the- utmost, and that the guilty man made a full 
 confession to him." 
 
 "The judge," shouted the man, becoming very 
 restless all at once ; " the judge ! Oh, Monsieur, if 
 you could have known the man who conducted the 
 preliminary investigation. If you but knew the 
 
12 A VILLAGE PRlE&T. 
 
 torture he made me sufFer, yes the torture, I say. 
 And still, I stood on my defence, I resisted, strug'f^ied 
 as hard as I could. But what chance has a poor 
 wretch who has suffered solitary confinement for six 
 months even before his trial, who is treated like a 
 dog, who is plied with questions every day, and, as 
 it were, turned inside out until he loses his head ? 
 Ah, if the walls of the prison could have been made 
 to speak. If the jury could have been present in 
 that forbidding room which I still see before me, 
 which I have never ceased to see for a single moment 
 of my wretched life ; if they could have been present 
 at the scene between myself and the torturer who 
 questioned me, they would have understood how, 
 with every atom of strength gone, I confessed to 
 having committed, how I invented, a crime of which 
 I was as innocent as a child, how, driven out of my 
 mind, broken down with grief, I gave myself up at 
 last, bound hand and foot." 
 
 " Silence, you wretched creature," said Armand, 
 carried away by his indignation. " I will not have 
 you insult your judge in my presence." 
 
 " Ah,youarepitiless," cried Jean Torquenie, wring- 
 ing his hands. "You show me the door, you refuse to 
 hear me. Very well, Monsieur," he concluded, as he 
 rose from his chair, " I shall go to another lawyer. I 
 was told that you barristers were kind and generous- 
 hearted, that when a man came to beg of you to defend 
 him by showing you that he is innocent, you did not 
 refuse him your help. When, on leaving my prison, 
 I started on my road to demand justice of the men 
 who sentenced me, I never dreamed that the first 
 obstacle in my path should come from him 
 whose mission it is to defend those who are 
 unhappy." 
 
 There was a kind of resigned dignity about Jean 
 Torquenie's last words which was very affecting. 
 But Armand seemed made of stone. The young 
 man whose heart was capable of any and every 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 1 3 
 
 generous impulse, the dream of whose short Hfe had 
 been contained in one word — " devotion," who had 
 chosen the barrister's profession for no other motive 
 but to make his existence a useful one, remained like 
 marble in the presence of the man who was imploring 
 his help. 
 I Evidently his relentless attitude was inspired b^ 
 I powerful reasons, and he must have felt convinced that 
 this man was lying to him. 
 
 " Good-bye, Monsieur," said the latter, with inde- 
 scribable sadness. 
 
 Armand looked away from him with a kind of dis- 
 gust. 
 
 But all of a sudden, as he was about to cross the 
 threshold, Jean Torqueni6 stood stock-still ; a yell 
 burst from his throat, he stretched forth his arms 
 towards a portrait in a dark frame that hung against 
 a panel, and he seemed overcome by some terrible 
 emotion. 
 
 " Ah ! here he is, here he is, the wretch who tortured 
 me, who disgraced me, who ruined my life, who has 
 perhaps killed my child. Ah, the torturer, if he be alive 
 still " 
 
 Saying which he shook his fists at the portrait with a 
 terrible, threatening look. 
 
 •But Armand had flung himself upon him and taken 
 hold of his arm, which he shook violently. 
 
 " Silence, you wretched man," he shouted, turning 
 livid with anger. And laying his powerful hand on Jean 
 Torqueni6's, as if wanting to force him to bend down to 
 him whom he had just insulted, he added fervently, 
 " This honest man was my father." 
 
 The released convict shook himself free and stared 
 the young man straight in the face. 
 
 " Your father ! " he shouted, his mind in a perfect 
 whirl. "And he is dead. Better so. Now I can 
 understand your repulsion, your harshness towards me. 
 You are cruel like your father. May my curse fall upon 
 you as upon him," 
 
14 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 And with a last look of fury at the portrait he 
 strode away like a madman without *iven tarnifl,J 
 his head. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 This violent scene had left an impression on 
 Armand's mind which he felt unable to shake off 
 during the remainder of the day. 
 
 Marguerite noticed the somewhat worried looks 
 of her intended, but in spite of her affectionate en- 
 quiries failed to ascertain the cause. Armand 
 assured her that he had never felt happier in his life. 
 He had only a headache he said, and he retired 
 early to his own room. 
 
 Andre Gerard, surprised and uneasy at his friend's 
 pre-occupied mien, went after him the moment he 
 left the drawing-room . 
 
 " Friend Armand," he said, putting his hand on 
 his shoulder, " there is something that worries you. 
 Mademoiselle de Tremeillan noticed it. She re- 
 quested me just now to ascertain the reason of your low 
 spirits. What am I to do, what am 1 to tell her ? " 
 
 " Leave me to myself for a little while," replied 
 Armand gently, and drawing back a few steps. 
 " Marguerite has made herself uneasy for no reason 
 whatever. What is there so very peculiar about 
 me?" 
 
 " I beg of you not to try to hoodwink me. 
 Mademoiselle de Tremeillan has no notion of what 
 troubles you, but I have. It is the visit of that 
 strange man that made you feel worried, that made 
 you taciturn. But, my dear old friend, if you 
 are going to allow yourself to be affected in that 
 way by all the stories your clients come telling you, 
 you will be the most miserable of men, the most 
 lachrymose of barristers." 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 15 
 
 ' Dont joke about the matter, I beg of you," said 
 Armand, moving once more as if to go. Then he 
 stood lost in thought for a moment, and took 
 Andre's hand. 
 
 " Look here, I am going to tell you what worries 
 me. 1 feel I had better confide it to you and ask 
 your advice." 
 
 They went to Armand's room, and the moment 
 the door was closed behind them, the young bar- 
 rister, apparently anxious to relieve his mind, told 
 his friend briefly all the circumstances connected 
 with Jean Torquenie's visit. 
 
 When he had finished his story he looked at the 
 young painter, as if expecting him to give his advice. 
 
 Andre Gerard had become very grave. He 
 walked up and down the room for a minute or so, 
 with his hands behind his back. Then he stopped 
 in front of Armand. 
 
 " This is very strange, and I can full well under- 
 stand that this visit has deeply affected you. But 
 before giving an opinion on the subject, I should like 
 to know the history of this man, the circumstances 
 connected with his crime, the particulars of his trial." 
 
 " The affair caused a good deal of sensation at the 
 time, and the Gazette des Tribunaux gave a full report 
 at the time of the trial.* I'll have the volume that 
 contains the report taken to your room to-night. 
 You shall read it, and you will find that there is no 
 possibility of doubt. The man confessed ; he avowed 
 himself guilty of the crime, and he was justly 
 sentenced." 
 
 " And still," said Andre, taking his friend's hand 
 in his, " and still you, my poor boy, are harassed 
 by a terrible doubt, and cannot help being intensely 
 anxious." 
 
 " No, no," said Armand, emphatically ; " I can 
 
 * An old-established journal, analogous- to the EnglishZaie/ 
 Times, but which appears six days a week. — Transl, 
 
1 6 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 assure you that I am firmly convinced on the subject. 
 My father was known to one of the ablest magistrates in 
 the ' jurisdiction,'* as one of the most upright, severe, 
 and talented judges. And after all is said and done, the 
 man confessed to his crime." 
 
 Armand kept on repeating these words at every 
 moment, as if desirous to convince himself thoroughly 
 that no mistake could have been possible, and that 
 no blot should stain the memory of his father, the 
 loving and reverential worship of which was part of his 
 life. 
 
 " My dear Andre, be kind enough to go back to 
 the drawing-room. They must not find out that this 
 man has been here. Tell them that I do not feel 
 very well. Tell them whatever you like, but I rely 
 upon your friendship to keep the knowledge of what 
 has occurred here to-day from my mother and Mar- 
 guerite. 
 
 Andr^ Gerard did as his friend bade him. He tried 
 to convince Marguerite that Armand had nothing on 
 his mind, that he would be all right in the morning. 
 He pledged his word that Armand himself felt very 
 sorry at his low spirits, but that his headache made him 
 feel very ill. 
 
 Madame d'Arcay accepted all this as so much sterling 
 coin. As for Marguerite, she smiled wistfully and said : 
 " I am willing to believe you. Monsieur, and willing to 
 believe Armand. I trust that if he had anything serious 
 on his mind, he would tell me. Ought not we to share 
 one another's secrets ? " 
 
 Marguerite retired with Madame d'Arcay for the 
 night. She had been at Rennes since the previous 
 day. Her father had sent her to Madame d'Arcay's 
 because he was obliged to visit a distant farm on busi- 
 ness ; and he did not care to leave her by herself at the 
 country seat. He was to come and fetch her next day. 
 
 * In Fiance there is no circuit, as in England ; each province 
 has its own courts, superior as well as lower. — Transl. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. jy 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Andre Gerard, who, when in Paris was an irre- 
 claimable night bird, by no means cared to go to bed 
 so early. 
 
 It was a magnificent moonlit night, the air struck 
 soft and warm, so he borrowed a latchkey of old 
 Baptiste and went out. 
 
 Madame d'Arcay's house stands in the quarter 
 immediately adjoining the river Ille, which at that 
 spot makes a delightful bend, the inside of which is 
 taken up by an eyot of poplars and grey willow. 
 
 To the left a mill bars the river. A cluster of old- 
 fashioned tenements with wooden joists and roofs, 
 built awry like a cap on a drunken man's head, stands 
 right on the water's edge. The windows of some of 
 these houses are lighted up the greater part of the 
 night, and the sounds of song and carouse, accom- 
 panied by the strident notes of a brass instrument, 
 fall upon the air. 
 
 These are the lower class drinking-shops and 
 taverns, ill-famed haunts, mostly frequented by the 
 workmen of the woollen mills of Breton and Co., the 
 tall chimneys and vast buildings of which lie to the 
 right. A promenade bordered with dense and some- 
 what stunted lime-trees forms as it were a continua- 
 tion of the river and affords a very picturesque view 
 of the verdant eyot, the mill and the old tene 
 ments. 
 
 With the full moonlight upon it, the whole made 
 a delightful picture, and Andre sat himself down on 
 a wooden bench to feast his eyes upon this quaint 
 corner of the town. But the noise from the drinking- 
 shops interrupted his gentle meditations. The 
 
1 8 A VILLAGE PRIKST. 
 
 workmen had received their fortnightly pay that day, 
 and were celebrating the event in a boisterous way. 
 
 Andre got up, crossed the river near the mill and 
 made his way right into the little eyot, the foliage of 
 which lay glinting in the moonlight. 
 
 He stretched himself lazily on the thick grass and 
 amused himself by watching the effect of the poplar 
 leaves quivering overhead like so many tiny silver 
 blades. 
 
 In a little while he fell into a kind of drowsy state, 
 which was by no means unpleasant amidst the 
 fragrant odour of the tall grass, as soft and yielding 
 as a bed of eider down. 
 
 The sound of hurried footsteps on the tiny bridge 
 that led to the mill suddenly awoke him from 
 his reverie, and to his great surprise a big shadow 
 loomed all at once in the near distance. 
 
 The individual who had found his way into the 
 small clearing stopped and remained motionless for 
 a moment, and by the light of the moon Andre 
 perceived a tall man with a slight stoop about the 
 shoulders. He was ba'-e-headed and his hair 
 perfectly white. 
 
 He was carrying a woman, who seemed to have 
 fainted for the moment. He got to the clearing, he 
 had laid her on the grass, and kneeling by her side, 
 endeavoured to bring her to. 
 
 Andre was not likely to remain an indifferent 
 spectator of the scene. He stepped up to the man 
 and his companion. 
 
 When he heard someone approaching from behind 
 the stranger suddenly started to his legs and made a 
 movement as if to take up the young woman and to 
 carry her off. 
 
 But Andre reassured him with a few words and 
 offered him his assistance. 
 
 The man accepted, and while the young fellow 
 lifted the girl's head and wiped the blood from off 
 her forehead with his handkerchief, which he had 
 
A VILtAGE PRIEST. Ig 
 
 dipped into the river, the stranger told him briefly 
 how he had met with the poor creature. 
 
 He was making his way through the poorer 
 quarter of the town when liis attention was suddenly 
 arrested by loud cries ; and he saw the young girl 
 being pursued by a crowd of women and children. 
 She ran as fast as she could and was uttering low 
 cries of distress all the while. He rushed forward 
 to defend her and at the same moment a stone struck 
 her on the forehead. She dropped fainting to the 
 ground. On seeing their victim prostrate the rabble 
 stopped, and the man immediately lifted the wounded 
 girl in his arms and carried her down a dark alley. 
 He noticed that at the further end there was a bridge 
 leading into the open country. He immediately 
 made for it, so as to save the girl from the further 
 cruelty of her pursuers. 
 
 " The poor and unfortunate should stand by one 
 another, shouldn't they ? " he said with a sad shake 
 of the head. 
 
 " She seems to come to," said Gerard, who had 
 felt the girl's shapely and nervous wrist quiver in 
 his clasp. " She cannot stop here. Shall I help you 
 to take her to your home ? " 
 
 " To my home," repeated the man in a bitter 
 tone; "to my home." Then after a moment's 
 silence, he went on, " I am absolutely without a 
 roof to put my head under. Monsieur, and to-morrow, 
 before daybreak, I shall be compelled to leave this 
 town." 
 
 Just then the girl seemed to recover consciousness 
 altogether ; she drew a deep sigh and opened her 
 eyes. 
 
 Andre lifted her head gently, and the first thing 
 the poor creature did was to put her hand to her 
 forehead, and- -a -moaja of distress came from the 
 colourless lips. The gash, which was a deep one, 
 evidently caused her acute pain. 
 
 Andre once more put his wet handkerchief, which 
 
20 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 by, this time was stained with blood, to her fore- 
 head. 
 
 In a few moments she was able to speak. She 
 saw that the two men who had come to her assistance 
 were strangers to her. In a scarcely audible voice 
 she told them that she had been a hand at the Breton 
 Mills since her childhood, that she had always been 
 ill-treated by her fellow-hands, insulted by the 
 foreman. 
 
 She told them all she had to endure, and gradually 
 her voice became harsh and savage. There was no 
 doubt about it, this heart of barely twenty felt sore 
 indeed. 
 
 " And do you know why they are all against me ? " 
 she went on with increased animation ; " why they 
 despise me, why they strike me ? It is because I am 
 the child of a convict. Is it my fault, I ask you, 
 that my father committed murder ? Ah, I should 
 hke to be a man." She partly rose from her prostrate 
 position and shook her clenched fist at that quarter 
 of the town where the lurid lights were cast back by 
 the stream. 
 
 But Jean Torqueni6, with a fervid movement 
 of his own, caught hold of the hand, and suddenly 
 threw back the young girl's head so as to let the 
 moonlight that was filtering through the .trees fall 
 upon it. Then with a stifled cry he flung both his 
 arm.s round her neck and passionately kissed the 
 blood-stained forehead. 
 
 The young girl freed herself from his embrace and 
 for a moment looked at him with a vague wandering 
 look. 
 
 " Oh, how like her," murmured the man to himself. 
 " It is she, it is she. Jeanne," he cried, trying to take 
 her in his arms once more. 
 
 But the girl had started to her feet, and with a 
 movement of horror and disgust, flung him back with 
 all her might. " Don't touch me don't touch me," 
 she cried. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST, 81 
 
 "Jeanne, Jeanne, I am your father," wailed the 
 liberated convict in a heartrending voice. 
 
 " My father," repeated the girl, and drew back still 
 further with a movement of dread. 
 
 " Yes, I am your father," Jean Torquenie went 
 on, pale and panting with emotion. " I am your 
 father, your father who is innocent, do you hear ? 
 Come, Jeanne, let me take you in my arms. Poor 
 child. They ill-treat you because of me. How 
 horrible. But there will be an end to all this, for the 
 world shall know that I am not guilty, and they will 
 despise us no longer. I shall make them respect 
 you. My poor child ; how handsome she is, a,nd how 
 fond I will be of her." 
 
 By this time they had both started to their feet, 
 and as the man drew a step nearer to the girl his 
 deeply lined face was suddenly lighted up by a smile, 
 the first smile that had been there for these twenty 
 years. 
 
 But Jeanne pushed him back once more. " Don't 
 touch me, don't touch me," she cried. Her eyes 
 darted flames, her face quivered with excitement, 
 and in a savage voice, she kept on repeating, 
 " Don't touch me, don't touch me." 
 
 At last she wound up with a " I hate you," and 
 at the same time she made a rush for the small 
 wooden bridge, and disappeared. 
 
 Jean Torqueni6 had dropped into a sitting pos- 
 ture on the grass, and hid his face in his hands. 
 Heartrending sobs shook his powerful frame. 
 
 The strange scene had made a deep impression 
 on Andre G6rard. He had not the same motives 
 as his friend Armand for mistrusting his emotion. 
 He felt a strange sympathy for this poor, unfortu- 
 nate man, and spontaneously he held out his hand 
 to him. 
 
 " Ah, Monsieur;" exclaimed Torquenie, clasping 
 it vigorously ; " this is the first time that people do 
 not turn away from me. This is the first hand held 
 
22 I A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 'i 
 
 out to n-le these twenty years. You pity me ; you 
 are kindj and good. Do not you think that it is 
 horrible/ to suffer as I do, and unjustly? Twenty 
 years' inlprisonment for a crime I did not commit. 
 And whjsn I come here to demand justice, the 
 lawyers ^how me the door. I happen to come upon 
 my daugi^ter : she curses, and flies from me. Poor 
 child, I fgjrgive her," he said in a tone full of pity. 
 "During\ these long years she has only learned to 
 hate me, Eind the whole of her sufferings are owing 
 to me, to [me; do you understand, to me, who love 
 her with ill my heart, who thought of nothing but 
 her happiaess when God gave her to me." 
 
 Andre (felt more and more affected. He was 
 struck byUhe man's face, which, notwithstanding the 
 ravages leit upon it by sorrow, was singularly hand- 
 some wheA lighted up by excitement. 
 
 He also kioticed that the man expressed himself in 
 terms scancely to be expected from a miserable 
 wretch whw had spent half his life in prison. 
 
 "And he\re I am," concluded Jean Torquenie, 
 "alone, absolutely alone, deserted by everyone. 
 Arid still I mean to have justice," he exclaimed, 
 rising to hi^ feet. " I mean to have it, and now 
 more than eyer." 
 
 And he tunned lis tear-stained face in the direction 
 whither Jeanis(e had disappeared. 
 
 " I am goin^r to continue my journey," he added, 
 picking up hjSs stick, which he had flung on the 
 grass. " WhitXier, Heaven alone knows. I have 
 been discharged Ifrom prison, and still I am not free 
 until the day when the law shall have recognised its 
 error. I shall no\t be able to move a step without at 
 every moment feelyling the hand of the poHce on my 
 shoulder. What ia wretched existence, indeed." 
 
 " Then you are jnot going to remain here ? " asked 
 Andre. [ 
 
 " No, they have\ fixed upon Evreux as rny place' 
 of residence, and l\ am bound to go thither. I only\ 
 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 23 
 
 came here to consult a barrister, for I was anxious 
 that the error should be recognised there where it 
 was commitlesd. But I was cruelly mistaken. I 
 went to two lawyers to-day. They both showed me 
 the door. The one refused to believe me ; the other 
 saw that I was too poor." 
 
 Then after a moment's silence he went on — 
 
 " I will not take up your time any longer, Mon- 
 sieur, in talking of m.y wretched self. You have 
 been kind to me. Allow me to thank you once 
 more. I swear to you that your kindness was not 
 wasted, and that the hand you clasped just now was 
 that of an honest man." 
 
 He had already turned his back when Andr6 
 stopped. The poor fellow was likely to be without 
 means, and though the young painter's purse was 
 but scantily lined, he would not let Jean Torqueni6 
 go without offering him the wherewithal to provide 
 for his most urgent wants. 
 
 At the suggestion to that effect the discharged 
 convict hung his head, and Andr6 was under the 
 impression that a vivid crimson tinged the hollow, 
 sunken features. 
 
 Nevertheless, aftsr a visible effort to ovccome 
 his reluctance, Jean Torqueni6 replied in a sorrowful 
 tone — ■ 
 
 " I thank you for your offer, Monsieur, if you will 
 allow me to accept it as a loan, not as a gift. I hope 
 to be able to repay you soon. I have a trade, and 
 I mean to work." Then after another moment of 
 hesitation, " May I ask to whom I am indebted for 
 this generous compassion ? " 
 
 " My name is Andre Gerard, and here is my 
 address," said the young painter, placing his card 
 in Jean Torquenie's hand. 
 
 A few moments later the discharged convict was 
 out of sight, and Andr6, in deep thought, made his 
 way through the poorer quarter of the town, which 
 by this time had become silent and deserted. 
 
24 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 When he came back Andrd found the volume of 
 the Gazette des Tnhunanx lying on his table. 
 
 He felt too great an interest by this time in Jean 
 Torquenie's story to postpone the knowledge of the 
 particulars, so he sat down there and then to read 
 the report of the Torquenie case, tried at the 
 Rennes Assize Court in 1847. 
 
 The indictment read as follows : — 
 
 " On the 25th April a waggoner from Bourree, on 
 his way to BonniSres, in passing a ditch, close to the 
 spot called ' The Cat's Hole,' came upon the body 
 of a young man, which he immediately recognised as 
 that of the Viscount Marcellin de Mortree. 
 
 "The waggoner placed the body on his cart and 
 took it to Bonnieres. The authorities were im- 
 mediately communicated with, and began a formal 
 inquiry. The body was dressed in a pair of trousers 
 and shirt. One of its feet was bare, the shoe on the 
 other had its laces untied. 
 
 " Neither money nor jewellery was found on the 
 body. One of the trousers pockets contained a 
 small book-, bound in blue, the odd volume of a 
 novel. 
 
 " The body had been struck in the forehead by a 
 bullet which must have caused instantaneous death ; 
 the bullet was found in the wound, and was a round 
 one, used with the obsolete large-bore regulation 
 rifle. 
 
 " Young Viscount Marcellin's life and habits, as 
 far as they were known, precluded all idea of suicide. 
 Left an orphan at an early age, possessed of great 
 wealth, he had everything that can make life bright 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 25 
 
 and happy. Truly, he was of a somewhat strange 
 disposition. He dressed, lived and spoke in a way 
 that often surprised those who were not on intimate 
 terms with them. But there was nothing to lead to 
 the supposition that he had any reason for attempt- 
 ing his own life. Besides, no weapon that could 
 have served to that effect was foui;d near his body, 
 and the spot where the latter was found, together 
 with the disordered condition of his dress, further- 
 more forbade all supposition of a self-inflicted 
 death. 
 
 " It was, therefore, but too evident that the law 
 stood confronted with a crime. Its duty was to 
 determine the manner in which the murder had been 
 committed, and to discover the murderer. A pro- 
 tracted and difficult inquiry has led to that 
 result. 
 
 "A very careful plan was made of the spot where 
 ths body of Viscount Mortree was found. The body 
 was lying in the less wooded part of the road. A 
 short distance further on begins the thick under- 
 wood of what is called Le Bocage, and which is on 
 a higher level than the road. This underwood has 
 been thoroughly searched, and in one coppice the 
 authorities came upon several broken branches, as 
 if someone had forced his way through it. 
 
 " It was, therefore, easy to ' reconstruct ' the 
 scene of the murder. The murderer had evidently 
 been lying in wait there for his victim. Viscount de 
 Mortree was killed at the very moment of his 
 crossing the ditch. One foot was still caught in the 
 brambles of the bank, and ho dropped with his head 
 in the water. A careful search led to the finding, in 
 an adjoining field, of the missing shoe of the young 
 Viscount. The evident conclusion was that he had 
 fled precipitately, and but partly dressed, across the 
 fields, and that he had been killed in that flight. An 
 examination of the body led to the .supposition 
 that he had been dead about an hour when the body 
 
26 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 was found. Consequently, it must have been about 
 four when the Viscount was killed. 
 
 " But whence did he come, and why was he 
 running about in the country at that time of the 
 morning ? Who could have any interest in killing 
 him ? 
 
 "Viscount Marcellin de Mortr6e led a very re- 
 tired life at his seat ' Les Marnes.' Since the death 
 of his parents, which happened when he was still 
 very young, he had become very melancholy. He 
 took no part in the pleasures and pastimes of young 
 men of his own age and station. The stables and 
 kennels remained tenantless. Now and then people 
 met him, mounted on a spirited, small black horse, 
 but he looked sad, his head reclined on his breast, 
 and he rarely went beyond a walking pace. The 
 exception was when he scoured the adjoining moors 
 at a mad gallop, as if to lay his too ardent passions 
 or his too exciting thoughts by this violent exercise. 
 
 " One day in one of those mad gallops he met 
 with an accident. His animal stumbled over a 
 tuft of broom ; he lost his seat and was thrown 
 so violently as to break his arm. The game- 
 keeper of the Count de Tremeillan found him 
 an hour later, lying in a dead faint on the moor. 
 He shouted to two or three peasants who hap- 
 pened to be passing by, and, as the Count's seat 
 of ' d'Albrays ' was nearer than ' Les Marnes,' the 
 keeper had the wounded man carried to his own 
 home. He was living in a small lodge near the 
 park gates. The Viscount stopped for two days at 
 the gamekeeper's, then, when the arm was set, he 
 was taken to ' Les Marnes.' 
 
 "After his recovery, the Viscount went to thank 
 the gamekeeper, and from that daj' forth his visits 
 became somewhat frequent. In his drives of former 
 days, he had never come near ' d'Albrays.' 
 
 " No one in the neighbourhood felt surprised at that, 
 for everyone knew of the deep hatred between the 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. i^ 
 
 de Trdmeillan and the de Mortrde families. But now, 
 on the contrary, the Viscount was often to be met 
 with on that part of the road leading to the gates of 
 'd'Albrays,' and he was as often seen to disappear 
 among the dense trees of the park. 
 
 "The peasants labouring in the iields thereabout, 
 and the small tradespeople of the neighbourhood, were 
 not the only ones that had noticed the frequent walks 
 of Marcellin de Mortree and the new direction in which 
 they were taken ; there was also the gamekeeper, who 
 had found the Viscount on the moor, arid whose name 
 was Jean Torqueni^. Torquenie was a young fellow 
 of about four and twenty. Two years previously he 
 had married a remarkably handsome girl, with whom he 
 was very much in love, and who was the foster-sister of 
 the Countess de Trdmeillan. Jean, who was of a violent 
 and jealous disposition, had not been slow to notice, 
 and with evident displeasure, that the Viscount came 
 prowling about the place. Once or twice, when he was 
 going his morning rounds, he had come upon Marcellin 
 de Mortrde. 
 
 " One day, coming home earlier than usual, he had 
 even noticed the Viscount's horse tied to the hedge, 
 near his lodge, and, on entering the kitchen, had 
 found the young nobleman seated by the fireplace. 
 Marianne, Torqueni^'s wife,- was mulling some wine 
 Jor him, because he had been caught in the rain, 
 and his clothes had got damp. Torquenid fancied 
 that when his wife and her visitor saw him come in, 
 the former shrugged her shoulders in surprise, and 
 the latter showed signs of being annoyed, and when 
 the Viscount was gone, he seriously took Marianne 
 to task for having allowed the visits of the young 
 noble. 
 
 " Marianne Torqueni^'s character justified to a 
 certain extent the apprehensions of the game- 
 keeper. She was very pretty, and furthermore, 
 very flighty and vain. Before her marriage shi 
 had had several intrigues which had somewhat 
 
28 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 compromised her reputation, to an extent such that 
 when Jean Torquenie announced his intention of 
 marrying her, his parents opposed his plan for some 
 months, before giving their reluctant consent. 
 
 " It was very evident that from the moment of the 
 Viscount's frequenframbles in the neighbourhood of 
 the Tremeillan estate, the character and behaviour 
 of Jean Torquenie had undergone a change for the 
 worse. He had always been quick tempered, he 
 grew more irritable still. He launched into bitter 
 reproaches against his wife without, however, 
 making any direct allusions to Viscount Marcellin's 
 visits. He merely complained of Marianne's, cold- 
 ness towards him, and he maintained that she had 
 never cared for him. One day a man from Bourree 
 found him seated in the road through the wood. 
 He had got his gun betwixt his legs and was hiding 
 his face in his hands. When the man called out to 
 him he raised his head, and the latter noticed that 
 angry tears stood in his eyes. He asked him in a 
 peculiar way what was the matter with him. He 
 was told in a savage way to mind his own business 
 and to go his way. 
 
 " A few moments afterwards an old woman who 
 was going to gather wood passed alongside of him. 
 She also noticed Torquenie's dark looks and began 
 to chaff him. 
 
 " ' Hallo, Jean, what are you watching for ? ' 
 she said. ' Is it for a rabbit or for a Viscount ? ' 
 He jumped up in a towering rage, clasped his gun 
 tightly, and stamping the ground with his feet, 
 shouted to her : — 
 
 "'Curse your Viscount, I wish he were lying under 
 this sod, you viper.' 
 
 " Finally, another v/itness, Pierre Desplasbyname, 
 and a horse-tapper by trade, who had come to work 
 for a few days at ' d'Albrays,' and had been quartered 
 during that time the oil gamekeeper's lodge, stated that 
 he slept in a room over that of the man and wife, 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 29 
 
 and was awakened one night by a violent altercation 
 between them. He failed to hear distinctly all that 
 was said. But he deposed to Jean Torqueni6 
 having been in such a rage as to have howled like a 
 wolf. He said that his life would henceforth be a 
 constant martyrdom, that he could no longer bear 
 with Marianne's coldness and indifference, that she 
 deceived and tortured him ; and that if that state of 
 things went on he should do something desperate. 
 The witness had sworn to the last words being 
 exact, and has repeated them on two separate 
 occasions. 
 
 " Jean Torquenie's jealousy was a matter of com- 
 mon talk in the neighbourhood. Consequently, 
 when Viscount de Mortr6e's murdered body was found, 
 a vague rumour pointed to Jean Torquenie as the 
 possible author of the crime. 
 
 " Nevertheless, for some days the authorities 
 hesitated to act upon the mere expression of public 
 opinion. Jean Torquenie's previous character was 
 a good one. The Count de Treraeillan had always 
 spoken in high terms of the honesty and devotion . to 
 his interests of his keeper. True, his brusque 
 temper had not made him many friends in the 
 neighbourhood, but his extreme severity with regard 
 to poachers might have been the partial cause of 
 people holding aloof from him. 
 
 " Still, public opinion grew so strong, it so loudly 
 pointed to Torquenie, that the authorities felt bound 
 to direct their investigations in that quarter. A 
 fortnight after the crime a search was made in the 
 lodge of Count de Tremeillan's gamekeeper. 
 
 " Marianne was in bed with a violent attack of 
 fever, and being nursed by one of the old servants of 
 the house, nicknamed la Terreuse. Jean Torquenie 
 himself was away from home. The examining 
 magistrate called la Terreuse aside, and asked her 
 how long Marianne had been suffering from this 
 attack. ' Something like a, fortnight,' was the 
 
30 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 answer. 'She was taken with it all of a sudden 
 one morning. We have all been very anxious about 
 her.' 
 
 "Having been asked to be more precise as to the 
 day of Marianne's first attack, the woman seemed 
 to try to recollect, and at last named the evening 
 of the 26lh of April — consequently the day following 
 the murder of the Viscount de Mortrde. The guns 
 of the gamekeeper were carefully examined. His 
 three ordinary guns were of too small a bore to admit 
 the bullet that had struck the young Viscount. But at 
 the bottom of a cupboard was found a short carabine, 
 still smelling of powder, and into which the projectile 
 fitted perfectly. 
 
 " Marianne did not seem to have heard what was 
 going on around her, nor to have understood the purport 
 of the search at the keeper's lodge. She seemed to be 
 too weak to be questioned. 
 
 "At that moment Jean Torquenie came in. When 
 he saw the magistrates he turned very pale, and he 
 uttered a cry of surprise. The king's procurator* 
 informed him of the suspicions with regard to him and 
 requested him to refute the same by giving an account 
 of his movements during the night of the 24th 
 April. The keeper dropped into a chair, put his hands 
 to his face and kept silent. He was shown the 
 carabine that had been found in the cupboard, and it 
 was pointed out to him that the bullet which had 
 killed the Viscount Marcellin was of exactly the same 
 calibre. 
 
 " He simply stated that he had not used the weapon 
 for the last two years, and that the last time he had used 
 it — to kill a wolf — he had carefully cleaned it. He 
 did not explain how it came to be stained with 
 powder. A\'hen asked to produce the bullets belonging 
 
 *A kirg's procurator is nowadays a Procurator of the Republic 
 and is virtually the public prosecutor attached to every jurisdiction, 
 though he does not always prosecute personally. — Transl, 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 3 1 
 
 to the carabine, he answered that he did not know 
 what had become of them. 
 
 " With regard to his movements during the night (or 
 rather the morning) of the 25th April he was unable 
 to give any precise information. He could only state 
 positively that the few rounds he had made at night 
 for the last fortnight had all terminated before day- 
 break. 
 
 " The confused answers of the man, his unsatisfactory 
 explanations, and the grave discovery at his house of 
 the weapon that presumably had been the instrument 
 of the crime, confirmed the suspicions entertained 
 against him by all those who knew his violent character, 
 quick to take offence. 
 
 " Nevertheless the proofs were not sufficiently con- 
 clusive to institute criminal proceedings. Besides it 
 was necessary to wait for the recovery of Marianne 
 Torquenie in order to question her. Meanwhile the 
 authorities set on foot a fresh inquiry, and pursued 
 their search in every direction for the murderer of 
 Viscount Marcellin. 
 
 " Pending the result, Marianne Torquenid died. It 
 was difficult to admit that the fever, which was by no 
 means serious, though' it had laid her prostrate for three 
 weeks, had caused her death. This sudden and 
 apparently unnatural death drew the attention of the 
 public and of the authorities once more to the game- 
 keeper's domicile. People began to ask themselves 
 whether Jean Torquenie, apprehensive of the revela- 
 tions of his wife, had not suppressed, by means of a 
 new crime, a witness whose evidence might have proved 
 positively crushing. 
 
 "A post-mortem examination was ordered, and the 
 physician entrusted with the task formally testified to 
 poisoning by phosphorus. The body was absolutely 
 saturated with the poisonous substance. The unfortunate 
 woman must have swallowed considerable quantities 
 of it. 
 
 "This time doubt was no longer possible. Who 
 
32 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 could have an interest in that crime except Jean 
 Torquenie ? He was arrested and taken to Rennes. 
 
 " For many weary weeks he persisted in denying 
 his double crime. He admitted that the frequent 
 visits of Viscount de Mortree had annoyed him, but 
 that he was perfectly certain of Marianne's innocence, 
 and that even if she had been guilty, he would never 
 have been base enough to kill a defenceless man as 
 one kills a piece of game from behind a hedge, and 
 to poison a poor woman whom he loved with all his 
 heart. Yes, he persisted for a long while in this 
 system of absolute denial. 
 
 " But one day, gnawed by his remorse, no doubt, he 
 asked to be taken before the judge entrusted with 
 the investigation of this difficult affair. When there 
 he made a complete confession. He pleaded guilty 
 to the murder of Viscount Marcellin de Mortree. 
 He admitted that prompted by jealousy he had 
 wanted to rid himself of him. Finally he confessed 
 to having poisoned his wife with beef tea in which 
 he had thrown phosphor balls, which he occasionally 
 used to destroy rats and field mice. 
 
 " In consequence whereof we, etc., etc." 
 
 Andre skipped the technical phraseology of the 
 end of the indictment, and turned to the more im- 
 portant part of the report as given below. 
 
 CHAPTER Vin. 
 
 " During the reading of the indictment Jean 
 Torquenie sat utterly crushed, with his head buried 
 in his hands. He only seems to have shaken off his 
 lethargy towards the end, for at the mention of his 
 having confessed to his guilt, he shivered from head 
 to foot and cast a bewildered look around him. 
 
A VltLAGE PRIEST. 33 
 
 " When the clerk of the arraigns has finished 
 reading the indictment, the presiding judge proceeds 
 to interrogate the prisoner. 
 
 " ' Jean Torquenie, stand up. How old are you ?' 
 
 " ' Twenty-four.' 
 
 " ' Your conduct through life has been a satisfactory 
 one. You succeeded your father as gamekeeper to 
 the Count de Tremeillan. The Count's father took 
 a great liking to you and had you educated properly. 
 You shared for some time the lessons of his youngest 
 son, who has died since. The tutor who knew you 
 as a child speaks highly of your intelligence. But he 
 also testifies to your violent temper. It appears 
 that one day when you failed to understand a pro- 
 blem he was explaining to you, you suddenly upset 
 the table at which you were seated. In 1845 you 
 married Marianne Danet, by whom you have a little 
 girl. When you married her, her reputation was 
 none of the best. She had had some intrigue with 
 a young man of Bonnieres.' 
 
 " The prisoner makes a motion as if wanting to 
 speak. In fact he utters a few words, but they arc 
 altogether inaudible. 
 
 " ' I must ask you to repl}' in a loud voice to my 
 questions. Remember that it is a question of life 
 and death with you. The crime you have com- 
 mitted ' 
 
 " ' Maitre Rousseau, the prisoner's counsel, rises 
 quickly to his feet : ' I beg your pardon. Monsieur 
 le Pr6sident, I am under the impression that my 
 client stands in this dock as an accused person, not 
 as one whose guilt has been proved.' 
 
 " The President : ' Maitre Rousseau, I intend to 
 conduct the trial as I see fit. Be good enough to sit 
 down. Torquenie, do you admit that your wife was 
 rather flighty and vain, and that you have violently 
 remonstrated with her on that score ? ' 
 
 "Marianne was an honest woman; yes, gentle- 
 men, an honest woman. It is martyrdom to me to 
 
34 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 have to listen to this.' Saying which he drops back 
 in his seat, thoroughly crestfallen. 
 
 " 'Answer quietly. The jury will not be influenced 
 by your affectation of despair. And no one inflicts 
 any martyrdom upon you.' 
 
 " The prisoner's counsel starts once more to his 
 feet. ' Monsieur le President, this man was very 
 fond of his wife and child, and the questions you ask 
 him are likely to aggravate his cruel sufferings.' 
 
 " ' His love for Marianne has not prevented him 
 from poisoning her. Maitre Rousseau, I must beg 
 of you not to interrupt me at every moment. It is 
 the prisoner who should answer my questions, not 
 you.' 
 
 " 'My unfortunate client has been so reduced by 
 long weary months of imprisonment pending his 
 trial that he is scarcely able to answer. I only ask 
 for a little pity for him, and it seems to me. Monsieur 
 le President, that I am not exceeding my duty in 
 doing so.' 
 
 " ' I must beg of you once more not to interfere at 
 every moment between the Court and tlie prisoner. 
 This man has always been very energetic and strong, 
 and if at present he be weak and crestfallen it is only 
 because he is stung b.y remorse or playing a part.' 
 
 "After this the President reviews the various 
 events that have preceded the crime. He draws 
 attention to the fact that Viscount de Mortree re- 
 mained for two days at Jean Torquenie's lodge, 
 after he, the deceased, met with his accident. There 
 he saw Marianne and was nursed by her. It was 
 very natural that he sliould have fallen in love with 
 the young woman, who was very handsome. 
 Subsequently he paid several visits to the lodge. 
 Marianne felt no doubt flattered by the attentions 
 of Viscount Marcellin. Owing to the peculiar nature 
 of his avocations her husband left her a great deal 
 of liberty. She probably took advantage of it and 
 carried on an intrigue with Viscount de Mortree. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 35 
 
 The latter was an unprincipled man, without any 
 religion at all, who must have thought nothing of 
 seducing the wife of the man who had come to his 
 rescue in his sore need.' 
 
 " After having briefly recapitulated these facts the 
 President resumes the examination of the pri- 
 soner. 
 
 " ' You admit that the frequent visits of Viscount 
 de Mortrte in the vicinity of ' d' Arblays ' made you 
 intensely jealous ? ' 
 
 " The prisoner, trying to control his emotion : 
 ' No, I was not jealous ; I knew well enough that 
 Marianne was the best and most honest of women. 
 But I objected to have her name bandied about.' 
 
 " ' You overwhelmed her with reproaches, which 
 were overheard by witnesses.' 
 
 " ' Marianne was young and without experience, 
 she was fond of admiration. I know the evil 
 tongues of the neighbourhood. They would not 
 have been slow to say things about her which have 
 been said since. It was to spare herself and myself 
 that kind of grief that I begged her more than once 
 to be circumspect and not to receive visits from the 
 Viscount de Mortree.' 
 
 " ' And what was her answer ? ' 
 . " ' She m.erely laughed and said that I had taken 
 leave of my senses, that Viscount Marcellin had 
 never said an unbecoming word to her, that she had 
 only seen him once or twice, when he came to thank 
 us, and that she could not help his taking walks in 
 the neighbourhood of the house.' 
 
 " ' A witness will prove directly to having heard 
 you say, on two different occasions, that if this went 
 on you would do something desperate.' 
 
 " ' I dare say I did say so, as I might have said 
 something else in a moment of anger. I swear before 
 God that I never had any evil thoughts, either with 
 regard to Viscount de Mortree or with regard to my 
 poor Marianne.' 
 
36 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 " ' You are trying a new system of defence. (Ad- 
 dressing the jury) : Gentlemen of the Jury, I am bound 
 to remind you that during the prehminary investi- 
 gation, the prisoner has confessed everything. He 
 pleaded guilty to having killed Viscount de Mortree, 
 to having poisoned his wife, and he has given the 
 most minute particulars to that effect.' 
 
 " ' No, no, that is not the case. I lost my head. I 
 beg of you, gentlemen, not to believe that I con- 
 fessed. I am innocent, innocent, completely 
 innocent.' 
 
 " ' I will read the report of the interrogatory of the 
 prisoner by the examining magistrate. The jury 
 will be able to judge for themselves.' The President 
 reads said report : ' Jean Torquenie admits that, 
 having left his domicile at midnight on the 25th 
 April, after having said that he would be away from 
 home the whole of next day, he came back at about 
 four in the morning. He called out to his wife, who 
 did not answer him. Thereupon he put his shoulder 
 to the lock and forced the door. At the very moment 
 he entered the house he heard the sound of a heavy 
 body dropping from some height into the garden. 
 Daylight was just breaking, which enabled him to 
 see a man getting over the hedge. He snatched up 
 his carabine, which had been kept ready loaded for 
 some time, and went in pursuit of the man. The 
 latter could only proceed with difficulty along the 
 newly ploughed fields, having had no time to tie his 
 shoes. Torquenie went round by Le Socage, and 
 took up his station by "The Cat's Hole" to wait for 
 the man whom he had recognised as being the 
 Viscount de Mortree. 
 
 " ' The moment the Viscount got over the bank 
 Torquenie fired, and the latter fell stark dead. When 
 Torqueni6 found that public rumour pointed to him 
 as the assassin, when he ftfund that the authorities 
 had searched his domicile, he lost his head, and 
 prompted as much by revenge as by the wish to get 
 
A VltLAGE PRIEST. 37 
 
 rid of an awkward witness, he poisoned Marianne 
 with phosphorus.' 
 
 " The President adds that the confession has been 
 dragged from the prisoner word by word by the 
 magistrate entrusted with the prehminary investiga- 
 tion, who has shown a perseverance and tenacity 
 deserving of the highest praise. 
 
 I' When the President has finished reading, the 
 prisoner, who has Hstened to him with a bewildered 
 look, starts up excitedly and cries out — 
 
 " ' But I did not say all this. It is impossible that 
 I could have said this. I do not remember a word 
 of it. Gentlemen, gentlemen, I must have been mad. 
 I wanted to hurry on my trial, and I simply said 
 I' Yes " to everything they asked me. Six months of 
 imprisonment, six months of solitary confinement, of 
 brow-beating, of ill-treatment. But, by heaven, I 
 am innocent for all that. 
 
 " The prisoner drops back in his seat, gasping for 
 breath. The President asks him one or two more 
 questions, to which he does not reply. 
 
 "The President: 'It is useless to prolong this 
 interrogatory. After having confessed to his crime 
 during the preliminary investigation, and having 
 given the most circurhstantial particulars, the 
 prisoner retracts his statements to-day. That 
 system- of defence is not likely to succeed, and the 
 prisoner would do better to renew his confession and 
 to throw himself on the mercy of the jury. We will 
 now proceed with the examination of the witnesses.' 
 
 " Several witnesses give their evidence. 
 
 " Jacqueline Frfire'was washing linen at the pump 
 w]ucli is close to the gamekeeper's lodge on tlie day 
 that the Viscount dc Mortree was in the kitchen 
 with Marianne, who was mulling some wine for him, 
 when she saw Jean Torquenie go into his domicile. 
 The window was open. When the Viscount was 
 gone she heard the prisoner reprimand his wife for 
 having received the young man. 
 
38 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 " Martin Brevant, farmer, deposes to having met 
 Jean Torqueni6 two days before the crime. He was 
 seated by the roadside and had his gun between his 
 legs. He seemed low-spirited and crestfallen. The 
 witness is under the impression that he talked of 
 death and vengeance. 
 
 " Maitre Rousseau; 'This is the first time the 
 witness mentions this detail. In the summary of 
 the indictment there is no mention of any words 
 uttered by Jean Torquenie.' 
 
 "The President: 'The witness may have re- 
 membered the incident afterwards.' 
 
 "Maitre Rousseau: ' I wish to draw the attention 
 of the jury to the fact that the witness appears to be 
 in an advanced state of intoxication.' 
 
 " Marie Alabregne,farm servant, deposes to having 
 met Jean Torquenie on the same day and at the 
 same spot as the former witness, and that in reply 
 to a joke on her part, the witness said, ' Your 
 Viscount, I should like to see him under this sod,' 
 while he angrily stamped on the ground with his 
 feet. 
 
 " Pierre Desplas, horse-clipper, says that he lodged 
 one day and one night at the lodge of Count de 
 Tremeillan's gamekeeper. He was awakened from 
 his sleep by the sound of voices in the room where 
 Jean Torquenie and his wife slept. They seemed to 
 be quarrelling and he listened. Torquenie accused 
 his wife of no longer caring for him. He also 
 reproached her with her love of admiration and 
 wound up by telling her that if that kind of thing 
 went on much longer, he would do something 
 desperate. 
 
 " The President : ' Witness, I suppose you 
 understand the very serious nature of your evi- 
 dence. You are sure of having heard those 
 words ? ' 
 
 " Witness : 'Yes, Monsieur le Pr6sident.' 
 
 " Maitre Rousseau : 'Torquenie meant that if his 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 39 
 
 life became too great a burden to him, he would be 
 capable of doing something desperate.' 
 
 " ' This is a very specious interpretation, Maitre 
 Rousseau, but the jury will be able to judge which is the 
 correct one.' 
 
 " The prisoner, greatly excited : ' Yes, yes, that is 
 what I really meant. I felt indignant at the tales 
 that were told about us. I remember having wept 
 like a child on Marianne's breast, and having said 
 to her, "If you left off caring for me, I would kill 
 myself." ' 
 
 " The President : ' Or else, that you would kill 
 her.' 
 
 "The prisoner utters a cry, hides his face in both 
 hands, and breaks into sobs. 
 
 " Maitre Rousseau : ' I beg of you, Monsieur le 
 President, to have pity on this man. Allow me to point 
 out to you once more that he is not condemned as yet. 
 Consequently it is not a guilty man you have before you, 
 but a man charged with a crime, and the way you 
 examine him ' 
 
 " ' I will not permit prisoner's counsel to call the 
 President's impartiality in question. This is the second 
 time that he interfered to criticise the manner in which 
 the examination is conducted. I beg of him to spare 
 me a third remark.' 
 
 " ' I will protest each time it is necessary. This is 
 my duty and I shall not shrink from it.' 
 
 " ' Maitre Rousseau, the Court and the jury will not be 
 influenced by your violence.' 
 
 "'I hope, Monsieur le President, that they will neither 
 be influenced by your partialit}-.' 
 
 " After this incident, which produces a deep impres 
 sion on the audience, the Court adjourns for a few 
 minutes. 
 
 " On the trial being resumed, the President com- 
 plains with great moderation and dignity of the 
 unjust attacks to which he has been exposed on the 
 part of the defence. He has presided at a great 
 
40 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 number of assize trials, and this is the first time his 
 impartiality has been called into question. Per- 
 sonally, he pays no heed to such calumnies, which 
 may be excused, perhaps, on the ground of the 
 desperate situation of a client whose legal defender 
 endeavours to save his head by all means. 
 
 " Maitre Rousseau replies that he will not again 
 interrupt the examination. He does not know 
 whether his client's head is at stake, and the Presi- 
 dent has no business to know it any more than he 
 does, seeing that as yet the jury have not given their 
 verdict. He will confine himself to putting the 
 necessary questions to the witnesses, and reserve his 
 appreciations of the manner in which the preliminary 
 investigation and the trial have been conducted for 
 his address to the jury. 
 
 " Examination of witnesses continued. 
 
 " La Terreuse is sworn. 
 
 " The appearance of this woman at the witness- 
 bar* causes a certain amount of excitement. Her 
 antecedents, her character, are calculated to arouse 
 a feeling of curiosity. Her family have all been in 
 the service of that of the Count de Tremeillan. Her 
 father perished on the scaffold with the grandfather 
 of the actual Count. La Terreuse's character is a 
 sombre and fanatical one ; people in the neighbour- 
 hood look upon her as half mad. l:i 1832 she 
 accompanied the Count to La Vendee, where the 
 latter went to join the rising in favour of the 
 Duchesse de Berry. She took the command of a 
 band of Cltouans. She did her share of the fighting, 
 and for months remained in hiding in a wood, where 
 she lived in a kind of lair like a wild animal. Hence 
 the sohriquei her companions gave her, and which has 
 stuck to her since.! 
 
 ♦ There is no witness-box in France, but a bar.^ — Transl. 
 t Terreux, feminine Terreuse, is the adjective of terre, earth, 
 meaning of the earth, smelling of the earth or soil. — Transl. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 4I 
 
 " The woman is below the middle height, sturdy 
 and thick set. She holds herself up well. From beneath 
 her headdress peep two plain bands of black hair, 
 scarcely tinged with grey, which make, as it were, 
 a hard frame round an unprepossessing and com- 
 monplace face. Her bright eyes boldly stare from 
 beneath the bushy eyebrows at the judge and jury. 
 Her yellow skin, low forehead, prominent jaw, and 
 thick lips give one the impression that she has 
 black blood in her veins, and that she descends 
 from some savage African tribe. 
 
 " Her answers to the President's questions are 
 given in a slow, deliberate way, as if aware of the 
 importance of her statements. Her voice is both 
 harsh and hoarse. 
 
 " It was she who, on the morning of the 25th of 
 April, on passing by the lodge, informed Marianne 
 of the discovery, in one of the adjacent roads, of 
 Viscount Mortree's body, shot through the head. 
 
 " On being told, Marianne uttered a loud cry, and 
 fainted on her own doorstep. She carried her inside 
 and put her to bed. About an hour afterward Jean 
 Torquenie came back. He looked nervous and low- 
 spirited. He scarcely paid attention to la Terreuse, 
 ■ when she told him that his wife was not well, and 
 went straight to a basin of water, in which he washed 
 his hands. He had no gun, only a stick. La 
 Terreuse asked him where he came from, and he 
 told her that he had been since early morning in 
 
 the Gievres wood. ' Without your gun ? ' asked 
 
 la Terreuse. To which Jean Torquenie made no 
 answer, and turned his back on her. 
 
 " The prisoner : ' It is a falsehood. There is not a 
 word of truth in it.' 
 
 " The President : ' Prisoner, I must ask you not to 
 interrupt the witness. This woman has been all her 
 life a model of honesty and devotion. She has no 
 interest whatsoever in misstating the truth. Her 
 sincere and deeply-rooted religious sentiments make 
 
 E 
 
42 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 her fully understand the serious nature of her oath 
 to speak the truth, and nothing but the truth.' 
 
 " The prisoner : ' She has told a lie, gentlemen ; 
 this woman is telling a lie (turning to the witness). 
 J ouannette, why do not you tell the truth ? When 
 I came in, I had my gun with me, my double- 
 barrelled gun. When I heard that Marianne was 
 not well, I ran to the bedstead. I did not wash my 
 hands, and I did not tell you that I had been on 
 duty since early morn in the Gievres wood. You 
 are either telling a lie, or you do not remember. 
 
 iust try to remember. Why don't you say that I 
 elped to nurse Marianne, and that by the way I did 
 nurse her, anyone might see that I loved my wife.' 
 
 " La Terreuse 1 oks fixedly at the prisoner for a 
 moment ; then she turns to the President : ' I swear 
 that I have told the truth,' she says, in a firm voice. 
 
 " The President tells her to go on. 
 
 " ' I nursed Marianne for three weeks. 1 came 
 every day, I brought her milk, and also attended to 
 her baby. In short, I did all I could for her, because 
 M. le Cure always recommends us to help your 
 neighbour in his troubles. She was dov/n with 
 fever. She often lost her head, and talked at 
 random.' 
 
 " ' Do you remember any of her words ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, she often spoke of Marcellin. (Sensation in 
 Court.) She often spoke as if afraid of her husband. 
 " Take cars," she used to say in tliat way, " he knows 
 everything, and he will kill us." And then she began 
 to yell loud enough to break one's heart.' 
 
 "'The authorities searched the lodge while you 
 were with Marianne ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, Monsieur le President ; but she took no 
 notice of them. She was too feverish.' 
 
 " ' How did the prisoner behave during that 
 search ? ' 
 
 " ' He seemed very much afraid ; his teeth weie 
 chattering all the while.' 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 43 
 
 " ' Tell US how Marianne grew worse, and how she 
 died.' 
 
 " ' It was in this way, and about the middle of May. 
 She had been a good deal better for four or five days 
 before that. She had been able to sit up for a little 
 while, and to take some nourishment. Still, every now 
 and then during the day she shook all over, in an 
 odd way, like this. (The witness shakes herself 
 violently.) She seemed to be very terribly afraid of 
 something ; she sat down - in a chair in the garden and 
 played with her little girl, but she did not talk of her 
 fear.' 
 
 " ' On what footing was she with her husband ? ' 
 
 " ' She avoided looking at him, and did not answer 
 him when he tried to talk to her.' 
 
 " The prisoner makes violent signs of denial. 
 
 "La Terreuse takes no heed of this, but goes on. 
 'Still, she was not aware of the authorities having 
 been to the lodge, and that Jean Torquenie was 
 suspected of having killed the Viscount. True, several 
 women of the neighbourhood had been prowling 
 about the place, and tried to come in and have a 
 talk with her. But I kept the vipers away. I did 
 not want the poor woman to know what they said 
 about her husband. It might have killed her there 
 and then, although I saw well enough by her looks 
 that she knew more about the affair than people sus- 
 pected, and that she suspected a good deal more 
 than she knew, save that the authorities had been 
 in the lodge. One evening she complained of pains 
 in the stomach and in the bowels. She had taken 
 some food during the day. She had taken some 
 beef-tea.' 
 
 " ' It was you who made it ? ' 
 
 " 'Yes, Monsieur le Prdsident' 
 
 " ' Was Torquenid present ? ' 
 
 " ' He was in the house at any rate. He came and 
 went, and kept dodging round me.' 
 
 " Did he give her the beef-tea ? ' 
 
44 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 " ' No. It was I. But I remember that, when I 
 came back to the fireplace, after having been away 
 for a moment, I was very surprised to find the lid 
 on the saucepan. I even said to Torquenie, " You 
 should not have covered it up. It might all have 
 boiled away." ' 
 
 " The President : ' Gentlemen of the jury, I need 
 scarcely point out to you the importance of this piece 
 of evidence. The prisoner came near the fireplace 
 when some food was being prepared for his wife. 
 She died the following night. Torquenie, do you recol- 
 lect this incident ? Do you admit having touched 
 the saucepan in which la Terreuse was making some 
 beef-tea ? ' 
 
 " ' All that this woman says is a lie from beginning 
 to end.' And Torquenie once more hides his face 
 in his hand and appears utterly crushed. 
 
 " At the request of the President the witness pro- 
 ceeds to give her evidence. 
 
 " ' Towards nine o'clock at night Marianne's pains 
 became more violent. She was twisting and tearing 
 her sheets, she flung up her hands, which were like 
 claws,, and her shrieks were more like howls. I 
 should think people could have heard her half a mile 
 off. Torquenie closed the window.' 
 
 " ' How did he behave during Marianne's 
 agony ? ' 
 
 " ' He seemed very much upset. He was running 
 about like mad. He flung himself down at the foot 
 of the bed and shrieked : " Marianne, I ask your 
 pardon." ' 
 
 " The President to the prisoner : ' Do you admit 
 having made use of these words ? ' 
 
 " ' I may have done so, Monsieur le President 
 (wiping the tears from off his face). I had been 
 very wrong with regard to my wife. I had unjustly 
 worried her with regard to the visits of the Viscount. 
 When I found that she was so very ill it is bu; 
 natural that I shoul4 have asked her pardon.' 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 45 
 
 " The President requests the witness to proceed. 
 " La Terreuse : ' Marianne grew worse and worse. 
 There was a wild look in her eyes, she seemed mad. 
 I have never seen anything so terrible in my life. 
 She flung herself about the bed, she seemed as if she 
 would like to tear the flesh off her body with both 
 hands ; she seemed as if she had swallowed a bar of 
 red hot iron. 
 
 " The President to the prisoner : ' Why, when 
 your wife was so ill, did not you send for a doctor ? ' 
 " ' But I did send for one, Monsieur le President. 
 La Terreuse can tell you. Do you remember, Jouan- 
 nette, my having asked you to run into the town for 
 Monsieur Barth^lemy. You went out, and when you 
 came back you told me that you sent a labourer who 
 was passing, because at that moment neither you 
 nor I could leave Marianne ? ' 
 
 " La Terreuse (firmly) : ' I do not remember that.' 
 "The President: 'At what time did Marianne 
 die?' 
 
 " ' About ten. Poor woman, she did not last long. 
 The wretch made her swallow a very strong dose.' 
 
 " ' Did the prisoner seem at all aff'ected by her 
 death ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, he wept.' 
 
 " ' Very well, you may stand down.' 
 " One or two more witnesses are examined, but 
 their evidence is of no importance. We may, how- 
 ever notice that of the Count deTr6meillan, who has 
 wished to show his interest in his former keeper by 
 testifying to' his interest and devotion while he was 
 in his service. ' He was an excellent servant,' he 
 said. 
 
 " The examination of the witnesses having con- 
 cluded. Advocate- General Aymard addresses the 
 jury for the prosecution. Monsieur Aymard's speech 
 is very firm and energetic. 
 
 " He begins by referring to the youth and antece- 
 dents of the prisoner. He was very quick and 
 
46 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 intelligent, but his character was a difficult one to 
 deal with. The late Count had him educated above 
 his station, and allowed him to share the lessons of 
 one cf his sons. This generosity on the part of the 
 deceased nobleman seems to have been a mistake. 
 
 " ' For [it is a mistake,' says the eloquent spokes- 
 man for the prosecution, ' to confer the high advan- 
 tages of education on the lower classes of society. 
 It leads to the development of instincts and appetites 
 which are often dangerous. The seeds of envy and 
 jealousy are sown in the hearts of inexperienced 
 natures ; they develop later on and become a danger 
 to society. In the higher spheres education en- 
 lightens, in the lower it throws men in the darkness 
 of hatred and envy.' 
 
 "Turning from these general remarks, the counsel 
 for the prosecution reviews the facts brought to 
 light. Without dwelling upon the admissions of 
 the prisoner during the preliminay investigations, 
 admissions in which he ought to have persisted at 
 the trial, for in that case the jury might have been 
 influenced by his repentance, there are against the 
 prisoner a series cf proofs so strong as to make his 
 guilt as clear as daylight. 
 
 " The counsel for the prosecution recapitulates 
 the facts already known, marshals the evidence of 
 the witnesses, and above all lays great stress on that 
 of la Terreuse, 'that model of loyalty and honour, 
 that brave servant of the bravest of masters.' He 
 shows that the first crime was premeditated, that 
 Jean Torquenie had shown his intention of ridding 
 himself of the Viscount de Mortr6e. Reproves that 
 the poisoning of Marianne has been the consequence 
 of that first crime and that the gamekeeper wanted 
 and to take his revenge upon the unhappy woman 
 for his injured honour, and to suppress an awkward 
 witnesSi 
 
 " Nevertheless the prosecution admits that there 
 are extenuating circumstances to be invoked in 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 47 
 
 favour of the prisoner. He has received the greatest 
 -insult a man can receive. He has been cruelly 
 deceived by the woman he loved. Whatever the 
 horror inspired by the two crimes one cannot help 
 pitying the poor, unfortunate man to a certain extent. 
 
 " Hence, society will not ask him for a rigorous 
 account of the blood he has shed. It will not ask 
 a life for a life. It will show its mercy and save 
 that head threatened by the ' sword of justice.' 
 Kevertheless, the penalty should be a severe one, 
 and the prosecution demands a sentence of twenty 
 years' penal servitude. 
 
 "At the request of the President the counsel for 
 the defence rises to address tlie Court. There is a 
 sudden stir of excitement among the audience. 
 Maitre Rousseau is known to be one of the young 
 lights of the Rennes Bar ; he is credited with a great 
 deal of talent and eloquence, and his attitude during 
 the proceedings has bred the expectations of a vehe- 
 ment onslaught on the prosecution. It is said that 
 he is convinced of his client's innocence, and that he 
 means to plead for an acquittal. 
 
 " In reply to the President's permission, he rises 
 quickly to his legs, and in a clear and incisive voice 
 he disputes inch by inch the assertions of the prose- 
 cution. He will not reply to the theories of the 
 honourable magistrate concerning the benefits of 
 education for the people. The thing seems to 
 him to have no bearing upon the question. This much 
 he may be allowed to say, that if Torquenie had been 
 ignorant he would no doubt have been confronted 
 by an Advocate-General who would have affirmed 
 that this ignorance had brought him to the prisoner's 
 dock. He tries to prove that his client never had 
 the morose and savage character with which, he has 
 been credited. In support of his assertion he reads 
 a letter from the tutor of the son of the late Count 
 de Tremeillan and of the son of the late game- 
 keeper. The document speaks in high terms of the 
 
48 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 prisoner's good qualities, of his gentleness and 
 obedience. 
 
 " Some witnesses have testified to his client's 
 rough ways and hard-heartedness. Maltre Rousseau 
 challenges the prosecution to produce the reports of 
 the police on the antecedents of those witnesses, and 
 it will be found that they have all been prosecuted for 
 poaching in consequence of Jean Torquenie's reports, 
 who was extremely severe in the execution of his 
 duty. 
 
 " ' You have been told, gentlemen, that Jean 
 Torquenie had no heart,' the young barrister goes 
 on. ' It is a pity that I cannot describe to you all the 
 phases of the short love story in which the imfortunate 
 man put forth his whole soul. It is a pity that I 
 cannot read you' all the letters he wrote to his 
 cherished Marianne. Because, if I could, you would 
 get a better insight into the character of the man 
 with whom to-day you are confronted. 
 
 " ' I consider it high time also to do away with the 
 odious story that injures Marianne's character and 
 exposes her memory to the most infamous suspicions. 
 In lifting my voice to-day, gentlemen, in defence of 
 that memory, I merely comply with one of the most 
 constant preoccupations of my client. If you behold 
 him crushed and despondent in the position to which 
 he has been brought by some cruel, inexplicable fate, 
 if you behold his tear-stained face, if you hear him 
 choking with sobs, do not attribute these signs of 
 despair to moral weakness, to a base fear of the 
 future lot in store for him. Jean Torquenie has: no 
 fear as far as he himself is concerned. 
 
 " ' When I proposed to him to take up his defence, 
 for the offer came spontaneously from me, he at first 
 refused. "No," he said; " I feel that I am condemned 
 beforehand. I have some powerful enemy who has 
 encompassed my ruin. I am a lost man." Then he 
 seemed to reflect, and after a few moments he changed 
 his mind. " I accept, Monsieur, I accept," he said 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 49 
 
 eagerly. " You shall speak to the Court. But you 
 will leave me out of the question. Leave rae to my 
 fate. Speak to them of Marianne. Tell them that 
 all the stories about her are simply S3 many 
 infamous slanders ; tell them that she loved me, that 
 I worshipped her, and that, if at present I am so 
 utterly indifferent about my fate, it is because life 
 can only be a long agony to me, seeing that I lost 
 everything that could make it a happy one when I lost 
 Marianne." And just now, when I rose to address 
 3'ou, the unhappy man, while the tears ran down his 
 cheeks, whispered once more to me, " Defend her, 
 Monsieur, defend her." 
 
 " 'And, gentlemen, I am going to defend her. I 
 will ask you to dismiss from your minds for a 
 moment or so all you have heard for the last three 
 hours. Follow me in your imagination to a brighter 
 spot than this Court, to that pretty country around 
 Bonnieres where the meads are so green and the 
 water of the stream so" bright and transparent. It 
 is a peaceful and happy spot. Verdure everywhere, 
 and peeping from it the turrets of " d'Albrays," the 
 roofs of the Marnes Manor, and a little further on. 
 the dazzling white walls of Mesnil. A handsome 
 young couple, scarcely more than children, are 
 strolling by the river's banks. They dream of love 
 and of the future. They are so engrossed with one 
 another, they are so intoxicated with their own 
 words that they do not notice the decline of day, the 
 sun slowly disappearing behind the horizon. They 
 linger and Hnger on, loth to part. AH at once the 
 girl seems to start from a dream. 
 
 " ' "What, is it getting dark already, and must you 
 go ? " she sighs. And after having left her hands un- 
 resistingly to the young fellow, who covers them with 
 kisses, after having promised him faithfully to be 
 next day at the same hour at the same spot, 
 she slips away with bounding step and a light 
 heart. 
 
5° A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 '_' 'For a long while the young fellow gazes after her, 
 smiles and kisses his hands to her. Then, when at 
 a bend of the road, she disappears, he opens his 
 hand which contains a letter she put into it before 
 she went. 
 
 " ' Quivering with joy the young fellow leans against 
 a tree ami reads the lines so full of bliss to him. 
 
 " ' " My dearly beloved, — I saw that you were sad 
 to-day and that is why I write to you. Let me beg 
 of you not to lose heart. Your parents do not want 
 me for their daughter-in-law, because I am poor and 
 have no other wealth to give you than my love. 
 But this love will be so great, so loyal, that they 
 will be touched by it in the end. 
 
 " ' " Yes, I love you and have loved you for a long 
 while. Do you remember ? I have loved since the 
 day we danced together at the fete of Bourr^e. I 
 love you so dearly, that often in thinking of you, I 
 feel inclined to cry. It seems to me that my heart 
 melts when I hear j'our name mentioned. Oh, if 
 your parents could but know of this love, they would 
 not refuse a girl who only asks to love them also, 
 and to devote herself to them. They have been 
 told that I am a coquette, that I like to dress myself 
 up, and they are afraid. Ah, my dearly beloved, if 
 they could read in my heart they would see that I 
 would willingly giv? up dress and everything 
 else for a single one of your sweet and affectionate 
 words, and that I would willingly accept the greatest 
 poverty if I could not be your wife except on that 
 condition. Trust in me. I shall never give you up. 
 I have never loved anj'one but you, and you may trust 
 for ever in the love of your Marianne." 
 
 " ' Well, gentlemen of the jury, I could read you 
 a dozen letters like this, and the spirit of affectionate 
 devotion breathing through every one of them could 
 not fail to touch your hearts. You will understand, 
 then, that Marianne was sincere in saying that she 
 had never loved until she bestowed her heart upon 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 5I 
 
 Jean Torqueni6, and assuring him that she shoiild 
 never love anyone but him. 
 
 " ' And this, gentlemen, is the woman held up to 
 you as vain, flighty, sufficiently forgetful of her 
 duties to fall after two years of a marriage which 
 had been the ambition and dream of her young 
 life. 
 
 " 'You have been asked to give credence to wit- 
 nesses chosen among those who had cause to com- 
 plain of the gamekeeper's rigorous sense of duty. 
 Why did not the prosecution call others ? They 
 would have testified to the affectionate union pre- 
 vailing in the gamekeeper's lodge, to Jean Torqueni6's 
 love for his wife and his little daughter, to the 
 unalloyed happiness one might have read in their 
 faces.' 
 
 " Maitre Rousseau proceeds to read a letter from 
 the Countess de Tremeillan, whose foster-sister 
 Marianne was, and in which she, the Countess, says 
 that there was not a better, gentler, and more de- 
 voted creature on the face of the earth, and that her 
 death has caused her intense sorrow. 
 
 " Maitre Rousseau furthermore points out that the 
 indictment contains a great mistake in contending 
 that the marriage of Jean Torquenie with Marianne 
 was opposed by the former's parents on the ground 
 that Marianne had either been engaged to, or had 
 had some doubtful relations with, another young 
 man. The real reason of that opposition was the 
 poverty of the young girl. And as soon as that 
 obstacle was removed through the generosity of the 
 Countess de Tr6meillan, the marriage of the two 
 young people took place. 
 
 " He then deals with the principal point of the 
 indictment — the appearance upon the scene of the 
 Count de Mortree, and the subsequent frequent 
 walks of the young nobleman in the vicinity of 
 'd'Albrays.' 
 
 " ' Gentlemen, allow me once m&re to re-estabhsh 
 
52 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 the truth which has been strangely misrepresented 
 both in the preliminary investigation and in theiniict- 
 ment that was read to you. The truth lies in the 
 words uttered a little while ago by the prisoner, 
 which he has reiterated over and over again in the 
 interviews I had with him. He has never, absolutely 
 never, been jealous of Marianne. He was absolutely 
 sure of her affection ; he would never have wronged 
 her by as much as the least suspicion. But he knew 
 the evil tongues of country people ; he knew that he 
 had enemies among those whom he had prosecuted 
 in the exercise of his duty, and he did not want a 
 single' unbecoming word said that could tarnish 
 the purity of the woman he worshipped. That 
 is why he asked Marianne on several oc- 
 casions to keep the Viscount out of the 
 house. But strong in the consciousness of 
 her honesty she merely laughed at his fears, and 
 she felt herself so much above slander that she 
 scorned all precaution. " If it pleases the Viscount 
 to come and take his walks about here," she said, 
 " we cannot prevent him, and if he drops in now and 
 then we cannot show him the cold shoulder in order 
 to satisfy the scandal-mongers of the neighbourhood." 
 There is no doubt that they had some little tiffs on 
 the subject, but they were of no account, and generally 
 ended by a kiss. 
 
 " ' We are confronted by three pieces of evidence ; 
 that of a man who saw Jean Torquenie seated by the 
 roadside with tears in his eyes and a wild look in his 
 face. You cannot have failed to notice, gentlemen, 
 that this man is in the habit of giving way to drink. 
 He may have been in a muddled state the day he 
 saw Jean Torquenie. Jean Torquenie admits having 
 said to the woman Alabregne, in stamping on the 
 ground, " Your Viscount, I should like to see him 
 lying under this sod." But the words were said in a 
 fit of temper and to shut the mouth of the aggravat- 
 ing woman who constituted herself the echo of the 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 53 
 
 spiteful tittle-tattle that had been going on for some 
 time in the neighbouthood. He never attached the 
 slightest importance to the words. He merely 
 wanted toconvey the fact of his being anxious to 
 get rid of the worry caused by the absurd malicious 
 rumours spread by some village gossips. 
 
 " ' Pierre Desplas dedared that he heard Jean 
 Torqueni6 and his wife quarrel with one another 
 during the night. Nay, according to the witness, 
 the gamekeeper is supposed to have shouted, " If 
 this goes on much longer I'll do something des- 
 perate." You have heard the complexion put upon 
 these words by my client himself. He complained 
 vehemently of the unaccountable slanders spread 
 about them, and said sorrowfully, " If such a mis- 
 fortune happened to me, I would not be long of this 
 world ; I should do something dreadful, that is 
 something desperate." 
 
 "'Hence I beg you to believe, gentlemen, tliat 
 Jean Torquenie had no cause to be jealous of his 
 wife. Marianne loved him ; he felt convinced that 
 not for a single moment had she ceased to be worthy 
 of him. Consequently I maintain that it is not Jean 
 Torquenie who killed Viscount Marcellin. Who 
 is the real assassin ? It is not my business 
 to find out. A dense mystery surrounds 
 the whole of this wretched affair ; but I am 
 thoroughly convinced that the crime was committed 
 by someone who wished to avert suspicion and 
 divert it to my client, the unfortunate game- 
 keeper. I am prepared to admit that Viscount de 
 Mortr6e was killed with Jean Torquenie's carabine, 
 ■ but I maintain that it was not Torquenie who fired 
 the shot. I admit that Marianne died by poison, but 
 my inmost conviction tells me plainly that it was not 
 Torquenie who administered or prepared the poison. 
 
 " 'You will tell me, gentlemen, that he has con- 
 fessed to having done both. I am treading on very 
 dangerous ground. My words prompted by my 
 
54 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 conscience are likely to raise ardent protests. But 
 it is my duty to speak out, and speak out I will. 
 
 " ' Gentlemen, I yield to no one in my love and 
 respect for the magistracy of the land. I sincerely 
 admit the worth and talents of the eminent men who 
 spend their best mental efforts, their heart's devo- 
 tion in the cause of what they believe to be 
 true and just. But like every other human institu- 
 tion, the magistracy may have its defects. The 
 principal defect of our institutions is the deliberate 
 animosity often shown by the examining magistrate 
 against the man who is confronted with him under 
 the charge of a mere offence or of a crime. The 
 moment that poor wretch comes face to face with 
 him the judge becomes his enemy.' 
 
 " The President : ' Maitre Rousseau, I cannot 
 allow such terms to be used here. You insult the 
 magistracy you pretend to respect. I must request 
 you to choose another basis for your defence.' 
 
 "Maitre Rousseau: 'Monsieur le President, I 
 foresaw the possibility of my words being open to 
 discussion, but I did not expect a remark which 
 positively aims at the most sacred privileges of th*j 
 counsel for the defence. The moment I am de- 
 barred from taking a certain line of argument, I can 
 but submit and be silent. I shall simply sum up my 
 facts, and I beg the Court to take note that my 
 speech has been interrupted, and that I have had to 
 leave this bar.' Saying which, Maitre Rousseau 
 sits down and puts on his biretta. A great number 
 of his fellow-barristers crowd round and shake 
 hands with him. 
 
 " The President, after having consulted his fellow- 
 judges : ' Maitre Rousseau, please to rise and con- 
 tinue your speech. The Court will listen to what 
 you have to say. The magistracy is above all 
 insinuations and insults.' 
 
 "Maitre Rousseau : ' I do not insult, I merely 
 state; I do not insinuate, I prove. I shall say 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 55 
 
 evei'ything I have to say openly, because I am of opinion 
 that it will contain a salutary truth, and that a deep and 
 valuable lesson is to be derived from this trial. I will 
 continue my remarks, but I declare beforehand that I 
 shall take my straightforward course, without taking heed 
 of any prejudices I may offend. 
 
 "'Gentlemen of the Jury, I address myself above 
 all to you. When a man is arraigned before you here, 
 you listen to the indictment, to the examination, to 
 the defence, then you give your verdict according to 
 your conscience. If you are told the man has con- 
 fessed to his crime you let the law take its course. You 
 are not troubled with any uneasiness or remorse on the 
 subject. 
 
 " ' But you never ask yourself about the scenes that 
 have preceded the conclusion of the drama which you 
 are now witnessing. You do not know what has occurred 
 between the moment when the suspected man has been 
 arrested, and the moment when he appears before you to 
 be judged. 
 
 " ' Gentlemen, we are now in the middle of 
 November. It was the middle of May when this 
 poor unfortunate man was flung into prison. Six 
 months have elapsed, six months of so-called remand, 
 during which he has not had a moment's peace. The 
 judge entrusted with "the getting up of the case," 
 with the preliminary investigations, and whose name 
 I do not care to mention, appears to have made 
 up his mind from the very first day. According 
 to him Torqueni^ was guilty, consequently by hook 
 and by crook Torqueni6 had to be made to con- 
 fess. This was the sole aim he pursued with a 
 vigour, with a tenacity, which elicited praise a few 
 moments ago from one of the honourable magis- 
 trates, but which I prefer not to qualify with any 
 terms. 
 
 " ' Gentlemen, I may just as well say everything 
 that is on my mind. This magistrate has displayed 
 the most relentless severity against my client. It has 
 
56 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 come to my knowledge that he went to -the head warder 
 of the prison, and asked him to reduce the diet of 
 the prisoner in order to weaken him in body and to 
 make him less stubborn. (Sensation in Court.) He 
 worried him day after day with long examinations, 
 in which he simply tortured him in every way. He 
 even went so far as to prompt the witnesses as to 
 what they should do, so as to catch the prisoner within 
 the meshes of proofs from which he could not 
 escape. 
 
 " ' Jean Torquenid struggled bravely ; he defended 
 himself for four weary months, he vindicated the 
 memory of Marianne, he protested that he was 
 innocent. But human strength also has its limits. 
 Conquered, mentally and bodily enervated, no longer 
 able to control himself, borne down by so much 
 moral and physical torture, Torquenid asked one 
 morning to be taken to the examining magistrate. 
 The latter had warned him that he would not be 
 tried until his affair had been thoroughly sifted, which 
 meant until he had confessed. The unfortunate man 
 wanted to have done with it. He had struggled for 
 a long while to save his head from the guillotine, to 
 defend Marianne's honour, but his strength was spent, 
 and he surrendered. He had made up his mind 
 to accept any and everything, to be condemned, to 
 have his name branded with infamy, but he could no 
 longer bear the tortures inflicted upon him. He has 
 said " yes " and " amen '' to all the questions which 
 it pleased the judge to put to him. That, gentlemen, 
 is how Jean Torqueni^ was brought to confess his 
 double crime.' 
 
 " This part of Maitre Rousseau's speech produces 
 a rather keen impression on the audience. But the 
 accusations appear singularly exaggerated, and the 
 charges against one of the most enlightened and up- 
 right magistrates of the Rennes Court are listened to 
 V, ith a smile of doubt by many people, even by some of 
 his o:)lleagues at the bar. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 57 
 
 " They are looked upon as a last and bold effort to 
 save his client. The barrister concludes by asking 
 the jury to acquit the prisoner. 
 
 " The President's summing up is impartial through- 
 out. He energetically protests against the strange 
 accusation by which the counsel for the defence has 
 seen fit to wind up his speech. If the preliminary 
 formalities have been protracted at all, it was because 
 the affair was surrounded by a great deal of mystery, 
 and because the magistrate entrusted with its in- 
 vestigation was anxious to bring to light every 
 particular. He succeeded thoroughly, and it is a 
 wretched system of defence to pretend that the 
 prisoner was not a free agent, and that the confession 
 of his guilt was wrung from him by force and pressure, 
 that odious means were resorted to obtain his avowal. 
 The President, in vindication of the honour of the 
 magistracy, formally denies all such allegations, and 
 expresses his regret that a member of the bar should 
 have repeated the slanderous assertions evolved from 
 the brain of a criminal. 
 
 " After the summing up, the jury retire to their 
 own room. They return in about an hour and re- 
 turn a verdict of guilty on both counts, but recom- 
 mend the prisoner to mercy on account of extenuating 
 circumstances. 
 
 " In consideration whereof Jean Torquenie is 
 sentenced to twenty years' penal servitude. On 
 hearing his sentence, the prisoner utters a heart- 
 rending moan, and falls back almost' unconscious. 
 He is carried away by the gendarmes. 
 
 " Maitre Rousseau gets up and says, in a loud 
 voice, ' Gentlemen, you have condemned an innocent 
 man,' " 
 
58 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Almost before daybreak, on the same morning, 
 Armand d'Arcay came into Gerard's room. 
 
 " Well," he asked, sitting down on his bed, " have 
 you read the trial ? " 
 
 The young painter rubbed the sleep out of his 
 eyes, and did not answer for a moment or so. 
 
 " Wait, wait, and let me think for a moment," he 
 said. " Let me see, where am I ? In Rennes, that's 
 all right. What trial are you alluding to ? Oh, I've 
 got it. Ye gods ! do you know that I felt vastly 
 interested in that trial," he said, thoroughly awake 
 this time, and getting into a sitting posture." There 
 is a president in it who strikes me as a regular old 
 humbug, and a capital lawyer fellow, whom I should 
 like to shake by the hand." 
 
 "You judge that kind of thing as an artist!" 
 said Armand, somewhat huffed at the way his 
 friend expressed himself on the subject of a respect- 
 able judge of the Rennes bench. " As for the 
 barrister to whom you allude, he was a very poor 
 creature. He lived with a woman by whom he had 
 a child. 
 
 " The deuce he did," said Gerard, scarcely able 
 to suppress a smile. 
 
 " But that is not the question. You have not 
 given me your opinion of the trial. The man 
 was guilty, was not he?" he asked with evident 
 anxiety. 
 
 " How long is it since you read the account of 
 that trial ? " asked Gerard, without replying to his 
 friend's questions. 
 
 " Oh ! a long while ago. 1 was very young when 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 59 
 
 I went through the files of the Gazette des Tribunaux. 
 About fifteen I should say." 
 
 " In that case, my dear Armand, I should advise you 
 to go over them again." Then he went on in a very 
 serious tone : " My dear Armand, you are asking me 
 seriously, because you are a loyal and upright fellow, 
 and because you do not wish to entertain the shadow of 
 a doubt about this grave affair in which your father 
 played so important a part. Well, let me tell of a fact 
 that greatly struck me. After I had finished reading 
 the account of the trial, and while still utider the 
 influence of what I had read, I was turning over the 
 leaves of the volume, which is a very thick one and 
 contains more than one year's issue, when I came by 
 accident on a paragraph inserted in 1850. There 
 were but a few lines, but they referred to the terrible 
 accident that had happened to your father. I am 
 unable to say why I should have been struck by a 
 connection between these two dates, between these 
 two events. May I frankly tell you all I think, my dear 
 Armand ? " 
 
 " Go on," said the young barrister, sadly. " I guess 
 what you are driving at " 
 
 "Monsieur d'Arcay was taken ill in I'^^o," said 
 G6rard, in a low and halting voice. " i±i.M' do we 
 know but that in 1847 — the year of the trial — he 
 may already have been affected by the terrible 
 malady ■ which terminated his life in so painful a 
 manner. How do we know that he was not already 
 then under the influence of that morbid excitement, 
 that he was not suffering from a mania for persecu- 
 tion, of which this poor Torqueni6 became the 
 victim ? " 
 
 "The same thought struck me last night," saicl 
 Armand, placing his feverishly-hot hand on his friend's 
 arm. " And I cannot tell you how the thought tortures 
 me." The young fellow hid his face in both hands and 
 seemed thoroughly crushed. 
 
 " I almost regret," he went on after a while, " that 
 
60 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 I sent the man away. I will have him looked fot 
 to-day in the town, and have another interview with 
 him. I will ask him to repeat word for word my 
 father's examination of him, the particulars of which 
 must be still present to his mind." 
 
 " The man is gone, " said Gerard, and then 
 he told his friend of what had occurred but a 
 few hours previously at the little eyot near the 
 mills. 
 
 When he had done teUing him, Armand sat fot 
 some time silent and quite still. It was evident that 
 a cruel struggle was going on in his mind. All of a 
 sudden he raised his head. " There is one person 
 in this town," he exclaimed, " who could give 
 me some valuable information. 1 must go and see 
 him." And he strode out of the room, evidently 
 under the influence of intense excitement. 
 
 A few minutes later he knocked at the small dooi 
 of a very modest tenement situated on the other side 
 of the principal Law Courts. 
 
 A woman opened the door to him. He inquired 
 whether he could see Monsieur Loiseau. At her 
 reply in the affirmative, he went along a dark and 
 damp passage, leading to a small room at the further 
 end of the house, and whose windows looked out 
 upon a narrow alley. 
 
 The moment he opened the door he was greeted 
 by a deafening, strident noise. Three immense cages 
 full of canaries were arranged against the walls. 
 The window had also been transformed into a cage 
 by means of a wire-grating placed inside and out, 
 and in this improvised aviary there was another 
 legion of canaries fluttering about. All these birds 
 were mutually exciting one another to sing, and 
 the sharp notes from their tiny throats horribly 
 pierced the drums of the ears of the unfortunate 
 creature that ventured among them. 
 
 In the centre of the room, at an oaken table, sat 
 an old man q\]ietly readirg without appearing to 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 6l 
 
 heed the chirping and twittering that exploded on 
 all sides like so many squibs. 
 
 When he caught sight of Armand the old man 
 took off his black skull cap and kept staring at hira 
 open mouthed, as if thoroughly amazed at the visit. 
 
 " I have not seen you for a very long while, my 
 dear Monsieur Loiseau," said Armand, taking the 
 chair which the old man offered him. 
 
 " And it is very kind of you to have come to see 
 me in my solitude, Monsieur d'Arcay. I have not 
 been out for nearly ten years, since the misfortune 
 that befell me. My poor little girl — my poor 
 Bridget ! But from the window that looks oq the 
 sq.iare, I often saw you pass. I noticed your grow- 
 ing taller and into manhood, and I said to myself 
 how happy your father would have been if he could 
 have seen you like this." 
 
 " I know you were very attached to my father," 
 said Armand. 
 
 " Of course, my dear Monsieur, when people work 
 together for many long years, they at last become 
 attached to one another. I had a profound respect 
 for your father, and he on his side was very well 
 disposed towards his trusty clerk." 
 
 " You held the position oi grefier a long while, did 
 not you, dear Monsieur Loiseau ? " 
 
 " For fifteen years, Monsieur." 
 
 " And you retired ten years ago ? " 
 
 " Yes, Monsieur, after the death of my dear little 
 
 girl-" . , 
 
 At that point of the conversation, the canaries, 
 
 excited by the sound of a strange voice, chirped 
 
 louder than ever, and to a degree such as to compel 
 
 Monsieur Loiseau to fetch several large black cloths, 
 
 with which he covered the cages. 
 
 " I hope you will excuse them, the poor dears," said 
 
 the old man, resuming his seat ; "they are not used 
 
 to visitors. You are surprised perhaps at my living 
 
 among these birds, the only companions of my 
 
62 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 solitude. But the fact is," he went on, visibly 
 affected, "my dear little, one when she died 
 recommended me to take care of two canaries of 
 which she was very fond. 1 have taken such good 
 care of them and looked after their offspring with 
 such solicitude that at present I find myself at the 
 head of an establishment of more than two hundred 
 birds. They are somewhat noisy now and again ; 
 but I always imagine that my little one is listening 
 to their song from on high, and I never complain 
 that they chirp too loudly." 
 
 Armand let the clerk chew the cud of his loving 
 recollections, while he was cudgelling his brain for 
 the means of leading the conversation to the subject 
 that was uppermost in his mind, without arousing 
 the suspicions of the old man as to the motive that 
 prompted his questions. 
 
 Fortunately chance befriended him, for all at 
 once a dark-complexioned head appeared at the 
 other side of the window, behind the twittering birds, 
 and a hand was held out for charity. 
 
 " So the police have not done away yet with this 
 bad lot, " mumbled the erstwhile clerk, casting an 
 angry look at the beggar girl. " It is a positive 
 disgrace to be begging at her time of life ; and the 
 more so, seeing that she has a trade ; she is at 
 Breton's cloth works, but she prefers hanging about 
 the streets to working for her living." 
 
 " Who is this girl ? " asked Armand. 
 
 " That," said the old man, in a tone of contempt, 
 " that is the daughter of a scoundrel whom your 
 father had put away. A fellow by the name of Tor- 
 quenie. The affair made a great deal of noise at the 
 time." 
 
 " It was about a twelvemonth before my father 
 fell ill, was not it?" asked Armand, trying to hide 
 his emotion. 
 
 The girl, seeing that every window remained 
 closed, went her way with a listless and indolent sleep. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 63 
 
 " No'; two or three years, I think," replied the 
 old man. " But even at that time he was far from 
 feeling well." 
 
 "Oh, indeed," said Armand, whose heart beat 
 violently. 
 
 " You see," the old man went on, " he worked too 
 hard. He put his heart and soul too much in 
 things; that is what has killed him. That affair 
 gave him a great deal of trouble. He had to deal 
 with a very shifty customer, who would not confess. 
 > At times, during the examination, I have seen him 
 turn as red as fire. He looked as if he were going 
 to have a stroke of apoplexy. I recollect, one day, 
 though I paid no attention to it at the moment, but 
 I remembered it afterwards ; I recollect, one day, 
 his getting up while he was questioning the man and 
 rushing to the mantelpiece. He took the timepiece 
 in both hands and carried it to the balcony, exclaim- 
 ing, ' The noise in that thing is breaking my head.' 
 
 " On another occasion he went to fetch his gown, 
 and put it on, saying to me, ' He does not confess, 
 because he does not know who I am. But when he 
 sees me in my gown he will be afraid, and tell me 
 everything.' 
 
 " I laughed, because I thought he was joking, but 
 when the terrible event happened I could not help 
 thinking that the poor man had behaved very 
 strangely for a long while." 
 
 Armand felt like confounded by what the old man 
 told him. He dropped the subject, and talked to his 
 father's former clerk about his birds and the flowers 
 in his garden. Then he took his leave, without the 
 old man having the slightest notion why the son of 
 the erstwhile examining magistrate had come to 
 trouble his solitude. 
 
64 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 When Armand got home, breakfast was on the 
 table. Marguerite held up her forehead to be 
 kissed, and said, " I trust, my dear Armand, that 
 you will be in better spirits to-day, and that the sad 
 expression of yesterday will have gone." 
 
 A new guest had arrived at Madame d'Arcay's : 
 the Count de Tr6meillan, who had returned from 
 his business visit and come to take his daughter 
 back to " d'Albrays." 
 
 The latter was just the same stern and freezing 
 personage whom Andre remembered having met 
 when a child. The painter looked at the delicately 
 chiselled and aristocratic features, at the dull and 
 expressionless eyes, at the thin and supercilious lips, 
 and came to the conclusion that the lapse of years 
 seemed to have had no effect on the cast-iron 
 countenance of the Count de Tremeillan. Only his 
 fair hair appeared to have lost some of its colour. 
 Was this wonderful preservation due to the tranquil 
 life the Count had led these many years ? Or had 
 the emotions of his youth, his political adventures, 
 made an old man ot him before his time, so that 
 having an aged look when still young, he had pre- 
 served the same when getting old ? 
 
 After breakfast he went away with Marguerite, 
 and the lovers' temporary parting was a smiling and 
 affectionate one. Armand promised to go and 
 dine with his betrothed at "d'Albrays" next 
 day. 
 
 " I say, Armand, your father-in-law elect is not at 
 all lively," said Gerard, as the two young fellows 
 were smoking their cigars in the garden. 
 
A VlLLAlit PRIEST. 65 
 
 " A very cold and stern disposition," remarked 
 Armand. 
 
 •'Yes, I should say so. A real icicle. Looks as 
 if made out of snow." 
 
 " A man of very hard and fast principles. Not- 
 withstanding this glacial appearance, he has gone 
 through singular periods of enthusiasm. He joined 
 the rising in the Vendee in favour of the Duchesse 
 de Berry. He wore a dress copied on that of de la 
 Roche-Jacquelein. As a matter of course, the blues, 
 as the infantr)' of Louis- Philippe were called, made 
 him prisoner almost at the very first moment. He 
 would never adopt a disguise in order to get away. 
 He aspired to the glory of being guillotined, instead 
 of which he only got a few months of imprison- 
 ment." 
 
 " Poor man, you have only to look at him to see 
 that he never got over the disappointment of not 
 having been guillotined." 
 
 " Don't make a joke of it, my dear Andr6. There 
 is a more grave and serious reason for the sadness 
 so plainly written on Monsieur Tr6meillan's face. 
 Years ago he suffered a most cruel bereavement, 
 that of his wife whom he idolised, and who was a 
 beautiful and saintly woman. He has never got 
 over the blow." 
 
 Next day, Madame d'Arcay and her son went to 
 dine at " d'Albrays." Count de Tremeillan's 
 country-seat was situated in one of the most fertile 
 and picturesque parts of Brittany, about six miles 
 from Rennes. 
 
 Though wholly engrossed with his love for Mar- 
 gu6rite, Armand could not help shuddering as the 
 carriage, on entering the avenue, passed before a 
 small tenement covered with ivy and surrounded 
 with poplars. It was the gamekeeper's lodge. It 
 was there that twenty years before had been enacted 
 several scenes of the mysterious drama of which 
 his mind had been fulltliese three days. He pointed 
 
66 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 out the huRible dwelling to Andr6 Gerard. A few 
 minutes later the carriage stopped at the front 
 entrance. Marguerite, prettier than ever in her riding 
 dress, which set off her shapely figure, ran forward to 
 meet them. Her handsome eyes beamed with joy. 
 
 " I have just got off my horse," she said ; " but if 
 you will excuse me I shall be with you directly." 
 
 The Count de Tr6meillan made his appearance at 
 the top of the shallow flight of steps leading to the 
 hall, and offered his arm to Madame d'Arcay. Mar- 
 guerite left him to welcome their guests and ran to 
 change her dress. 
 
 She had spoken truly ; but a few moments sufficed 
 to accomplish the transformation ; and in an in- 
 credibly short time Mademoiselle de Tremeillan, 
 wearing a cool Pompadour-flowered muslin, entered 
 the grand drawing-room with a smile on her lips. 
 There were several other guests besides the d'Arcay 
 party, some of the Count's neighbours, and the old 
 vicar of Bonnieres who, pending dinner, was playing 
 a game of backgammon with Monsieur de Rigny, 
 the actual owner of " Les Marnes." 
 
 Marguerite had led Armand to the recess of a tall 
 window. They stood looking at the horizon, which 
 the waning sun was lighting up with strange brown- 
 ish tints. The window stood open, and the fragrance 
 of jasmine and mignonette embalmed the air. They 
 did not speak, they were wrapt in a long love dream ; 
 earth and everything around them was forgotten; 
 they were in a heaven of their own. They loved 
 one another so intensely, they had loved one another 
 so long already, and they could never look back 
 upon their first meeting without being stirred to 
 their inmost depths. 
 
 They had met in one of those sleepy hollows, 
 downright nests of foliage and moss, where the still- 
 ness is only broken by the twittering of the birds 
 and the ripple of the rivulet pursuing its lazy course 
 through the grasF. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 67 
 
 Armand was only eighteen, and he had been 
 deUcate from his childhood. He was tall, thin, and 
 pale, with bright eyes, but he stooped somewhat, 
 and the doctor had recommended bodily exercise. 
 Madame d'Arcay made him ride, take fencing lessons, 
 and go out- shooting. But when Armand went out 
 shooting he always took a book in his bag, and the 
 moment he got to a shady tree or a nice little brook, 
 he sat down, put his gun against a little hillock, and 
 spent his time in reading or in drawing until it was time 
 to return. 
 
 One lovely September day Armand was " shooting " 
 in that fashion, in one of the delightful Brittany hol- 
 lows, when the silence all round was broken by the 
 neighing of a horse. 
 
 He suddenly looked up and beheld a small grey 
 pony, ridden by a young girl, who was certainly not 
 more than ■ fifteen. Seeing that Armand was lying 
 right across the path the girl could not proceed 
 without 'disturbing him. So Armand got up, took 
 his gun out of the way, and lifted his cap. But the 
 girl checked her horse, which was already on the 
 move. 
 
 " I am sorry to trouble you, Monsieur, but will you 
 please tell me the time ? " she asked, without appearing 
 the least embarrassed. 
 
 " It is four o'clock. Mademoiselle," replied the young 
 fellow, taking out his watch, 
 
 "Then I have got two hours to get back, much 
 more than I want," said Marguerite de Tr^meillan. 
 "Toby is very hot, arid so am I," she added, push- 
 ing back her black curls which were tumbling over 
 her forehead. " It is beautifully cool here, and I 
 think I will stop a bit. You do not mind. Mon- 
 sieur ? " 
 
 And without waiting for his answer, she threw him 
 the reins and jumped down. 
 
 "You were after the birds?" she asked of 
 Armand, after having seated herself by his side. 
 
6S A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 Then she glanced at the empty bag, which was lying 
 a few steps further away, and a somewhat ironical 
 smile played on her rosy lips. " You are going back 
 empty-handed ? " she added. Then, lest she should 
 have offended the young fellow, she went on — 
 
 "There is neither game nor Mrd down here. 
 You must go higher up where they have been 
 cutting the rye. There are lots of partridges. I 
 am very fond of shooting. My father bought me a 
 small gun this year, and in the morning I go out with 
 the keeper in the park. I have already shot two 
 rabbits." There was a kind of triumphant look on 
 her face as she turned it on the young fellow. 
 
 Then they fell a-chatting. Armand confessed to 
 having but little liking for bodily exertion. She 
 asked him who he was, what he did, and so on. 
 When he told her that he was just beginning to read 
 for the law and that he was going to the bar, there 
 was a slight deprecating pursing of the lips. 
 
 " If I had been a man," she said, " I should have 
 liked to be a soldier.' ' 
 
 When he told her his name, she clapped her hands 
 for joy. " But you are a neighbour," she exclaimed. 
 " Our grounds touch one another. I was almost 
 going into your park the other day. There is a 
 breach in the wall and a fox got through it. I 
 wanted to go after it, but the keeper told me not to, 
 for you might prosecute us for trespass." 
 
 Armand assured her that he would be delighted if 
 shewould come and shoot over his mother's ground. 
 
 " My father sees no one," she said, "he is very 
 solitary, and I often feel very dull. I should be so 
 glaa if you were to come to us. You will see, I shall 
 make you like shooting and riding. You'll ride Toby, 
 he is very gentle, and I'll ride the black mare." 
 
 There was a kind of protecting look as she said 
 this in a decided tone of voice, which was thoroughly 
 delightful. 
 
 When she cantered away, for she had been out- 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 6g 
 
 Staying her time chatting, Armand felt a strange void. 
 It seemed to him that the girl carried away part of 
 himself. 
 
 They saw one another again, for Armand prevailed 
 upon his mother to call upon their neighbour, the 
 Count de Tremeillan. He pretended that there was a 
 large and valuable library at " d'Albrays," which 
 he would very much like to examine. Though 
 Madame d'Arcay lived in strict retirement since her 
 husband's terrible illness, she complied with her 
 son's wish, and the intimacy that sprang up between 
 the young people in consequence was intensely de- 
 lightfal to both. For though their characters were 
 utterly dissimilar, they harmonised perfectly. 
 
 The Count de Tr6meillan, who since the death cf 
 his wife seemed plung,;d into a constant state of 
 reverie, paid little or no heed to his daughter. She 
 had grown up free as air, without the least con- 
 straint. She was absolutely free from the intolerable 
 awkwardness of young girls brought up in towns, 
 and whose education up till twenty consists of a 
 course of refined hypocrisy. Her disposition was 
 a frank, spontaneous, and generous one, ignorant of 
 all evil, consequently indulgent and good to a fault. 
 But it was also an exquisitely affectionate one, suf- 
 fering great'y from the utter solitude around her. 
 Her mother died a few months after she was born. 
 Her father frightened her, as it were, by his cold 
 and resarved attitude. 
 
 The collapse of his political hopes, coupled with 
 the death of his wife, had thrown the Count de 
 Tremeillan into a state of sombre melancholy, which 
 made his society a dull one to so young a girl, who 
 was an enthusiast by nature, whose heart was be- 
 ginning to speak, who was eager to love and to be 
 loved. 
 
 That which her father could not, or would not, 
 give her was made up by the love of Armand, which 
 rewarded her a hundredfold for the want of affection 
 
70 A VILLAGE PRIEST, 
 
 and the unaccountable indifference with which she 
 had been treated from her infancy. 
 
 Madame d'Arcay had not been slow to notice her 
 son's feelings with regard to their sweet neighbour. 
 But seeing that she idolised Armand, and soon be- 
 came aware of Marguerite's charming disposition, 
 she encouraged rather than opposed this nascent 
 affection. 
 
 Armand went every day to " d' Albrays," ostensibly 
 to study in the big, black-joisted library which took 
 up a whole wing of the building, iu reality to spend 
 long, long hours with Marguerite in the park. 
 Count de Tremeillan did not concern himself about 
 the doings of his daughter. But there was a 
 guardian angel in the shape of the purest and most 
 delicate love, which protected her better than half- 
 a-dozen of the sternest cliapercnes or most rigid 
 duennas could have done. 
 
 These young people loved one another without 
 being aware even of the whole extent and power of 
 the affection that bound them together. It wanted 
 some untoward trial to open their eyes, and it came 
 in the guise of a protracted and dangerous illness 
 just when Armand had turned twenty. "When 
 Marguerite ceased to see him every day, when the 
 impatient footstep no longer rang upon the marble 
 flags of the great hall, when she had to take her 
 solitary stroll under the spreading trees of the park, 
 when the companion with whom to exchange her 
 sweet and gentle thoughts was no longer by her 
 side, when she grew pale as death with dire anxiety 
 at the knowledge that this dear companion was far 
 away, racked with pain and exposed to all the 
 dangers of a serious illness, then she understood 
 how this hourly and daily intimacy had attached 
 her to Armand ; she understood that she loved him 
 with all her soul, and that should he die, she would 
 net survive him. 
 
 He on the other hand only thought of her ; he 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 71 
 
 talked of her -when delirious with fever, he held out 
 both arms to her ; he would have had her near him, 
 and he suffered as much from her absence as from 
 the illness that bore him down. 
 
 Marguerite had guessed Armand's inmost longings. 
 Unable to see or to tend him, a deprivation that 
 filled her heart with grief, she at least wished her 
 image to be by his side, so she sent Madame 
 d'Arcay a small portrait, taken two years previously 
 when she was still a child. And the kind mother, 
 who was aware of her son's greatest need amidst 
 his sufferings, had placed the portrait by the patient's 
 bedside, so that without fatigue he could constantly 
 glance at those charming features, look into the 
 eyes that seemed to smile at him. 
 
 Armand began to mend apace. But his recovery 
 was scarcely complete when a sad complication 
 arose. The condition of his unhappy father grew 
 rapidly worse. His lunacy, which for many years 
 ha 5 only shown itself in strange manias and odd 
 behaviour, developed into a morbid state of coma, a 
 melancholy lethargy which was proof against every 
 kind of remedy. It looked as if death had already 
 set in ; he neither spoke nor moved. The doctor was 
 of opinion that the Southern climate might prolong 
 this miserable existence for a little while, and 
 advised Madame d'Arcay to settle either at Nice or 
 Mentone. 
 
 It meant the interruption of Armand's studies at 
 the very moment when he was about to reap the 
 fruits of them. It meant above all a separation from 
 Marguerite for an indefinite period. But the voice 
 of duty called, and he obeyed the call and went 
 away. The day before his departure Marguerite 
 and he repaired at nightfall to the small chapel at 
 " d'Albrays," and there, kneeling at one another's 
 side before the altar with its flickering lights, they 
 promised to love one another through life and death, 
 to be one day united in wedlock. 
 
72 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 Armand was away for three years. Monsieur 
 d'Arcay died at Bordighiera. Armand had to bear 
 with the additional grief of seeing his poor father's 
 wandering looks turn away from him at the last 
 moment. Ever since he had been ill, that is, during 
 a period of twenty years, he had not had one lucid 
 moment. He had never recognised either his wife 
 or his son. 
 
 Madame d'Arcay and her son returned to Mesnil 
 with the mortal remains of the former magistrate. 
 For a twelvemonth they were absolutely over- 
 whelmed with grief, and would not be reconciled to 
 their loss. Armand had always hoped against hope. 
 He refused to believe that his father's illness, which 
 was of the gentle and harmless kind, would never be 
 cured. 
 
 He endeavoured to allay his grief by studying hard, 
 and was called to the bar. Marguerite also did her 
 best to comfort him by her affectionate solicitude, 
 by the encouraging example of her strong and 
 valorous mind and heart. 
 
 Madame d'Arcay, whose whole life had been de- 
 voted to her husband, now devoted her life to her 
 son. She had her house at Rennes built, and with 
 a feeling of delicacy for which the young people were 
 very grateful she consulted them about the smallest 
 particular of the new dwelling as if wanting to con- 
 vey that it was intended for them rather than for 
 her. 
 
 At last she took the decisive step for which 
 Armand had been waiting so impatiently, and which 
 had been delayed by the sad events of the last few 
 years. She went to ask the Count de Tremeillan 
 for the hand of his daughter for her son Armand. The 
 important mission was not un^iertaken without a 
 certain feeling of emotion, She knew the settled 
 ideas of the Count de Tremeillan. She knew that 
 he carried his pride of birth to the furthermost limits ; 
 she knew of his haughty prejudices that made him 
 
A VILLAGE PRIES*. 73 
 
 despise no mattet what profession ; and she feared a 
 refusal on the part of the old nobleman ; she foresaw 
 for her dear Armand a disappointment that might 
 perhaps wreck his life. 
 
 Hence it was with a voice rendered unsteady by 
 emotion that kind Madame d'Arcay pronounced 
 the traditional formula before that old man with the 
 hard look that seemed always lost in a dream of 
 other days. 
 
 To her intense surprise the stony face expressed 
 no displeasure. Monsieur de Tremeillan suppressed 
 a slight yawn, settled himself a little more upright 
 in his chair, and said in an unconcerned tone of 
 voice, " Yes, I knew that these children were fond 
 of one another. Very well. The marriage will take 
 place whenever you wish. My solicitor will inform 
 you of the exact amount of my daughter's dowry." 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Count de Tremeillan rarely saw company. His 
 fellow-men inspired him with a kind of mistrust and 
 hatred, and he constantly shut himself up in his 
 surly, misanthropical solitude. Nevertheless, at 
 long intervals, he asked two or three neighbours 
 to dinner, and among them the vicar of Bonni^res, 
 whom he held in great respect. 
 
 After dinner Armand went up to Monsieur de 
 Rigny and took him aside. He was the actual pro- 
 prietor of " Les Marnes," which he had bought at the 
 terrible death of the Viscount de Mortr6e. Armand 
 wanted to draw him out on the subject of the former 
 owner, but at the very mention of Marcellin de 
 Mortree's name, helooked terrified, and begged of him 
 
 G 
 
74 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 never to pronounce that name in the hearing of his 
 intended father-in-law. 
 
 "And why so?" asked Armand, who had been 
 told now and then of the hatred between Monsieur 
 de Tremeillan and young Viscount de Mortrde, but 
 who had never troubled to ascertain the causes of that 
 hatred. 
 
 " Come and have a cigar on the balcony,'' answered 
 careful Monsieur de Rigny, gently pulling Armand on 
 to a terrace overlooking the garden. '' I'll tell you all 
 about it in a few words." 
 
 \\'hen they were by themselves, the proprietor of 
 " Les Marnes " told Armand that the Viscount de 
 Mortrde had made the mistake of abandoning the 
 ideas and principles of his family. His father had 
 already set him a bad example. During the revolu- 
 tion he had bought some of the land of the nobles 
 that had emigrated, in order to extend his own domain, 
 and the gentry and aristocracy of the neighbourhood 
 had never forgiven him. Viscount Marcellin had 
 gone further still. He openly professed his unbelief, 
 he neither believed in God nor the Devil. And, to 
 make matters worse, he had, in 1830, accepted the 
 functions of Mayor of the small village of Bourrde. 
 Count de Trdmeillan having met him one day at a 
 neighbour's seat, had turned his back on him, and 
 had even declared that if ever he came face to- face 
 with him he would fling his glove in his face. He 
 called him a traitor, an apostate, and bestowed even 
 some more offensive epithets on him. He felt 
 an incurable and deep antipathy to the young 
 fellow. 
 
 At that point of Count de Rigny's story Marguerite 
 de Tremeillan came to look for Armand, and gently 
 reproached him with having deserted her. 
 
 It was a lovely night and the young couple went 
 for a stroll in the park. The first beams of the rising 
 moon filtered through the grand motionless trees 
 and tinged the white mist of the evening dew floating 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 75 
 
 upward from the vast green sward of the garden. 
 There was something weird and fantastic about 
 these floating, indistinct vapours. Every now and 
 then they seemed to be caught in the rank, lush 
 grass, and to assume the strangeever-shifting shapes 
 one beholds in a dream. 
 
 Armand and Marguerite walked very slowly, 
 deeply impressed by that soul-stirring poetry that 
 makes itself felt at the first hours of darkness when 
 the moon sheds her peaceful light on all things. 
 
 They had scarcely got as far as the confines of 
 the park when Marguerite asked Armand whether 
 he remembered what anniversary it was to-day. 
 
 Armand looked up, somewhat surprised, reflected 
 for a moment. Then he suddenly remembered. 
 " Yes," he said, affectionately pressing his com- 
 panion's arm as if to give her courage. " Yes, it is 
 the anniversary of your poor mother's death." 
 
 " That's why I asked you to dine at ' d'Albrays.' 
 I should not have liked to be by myself on that day. 
 I love her so much, the poor mother whom I never 
 knew." And a tear stood in her eye as she bent her 
 head and sighed. 
 
 She had taken a dark, narrow avenue, cut bodily 
 into a dense plantation of elms. 
 
 " Before I knew you," the girl went on, " I made 
 a daily pilgrimage to this spot. Many a tear have I 
 shed among these trees, many a sad sigh have I 
 uttered. It was so sad not to have a mother to 
 whom to confide my girl's thoughts. But then you 
 came upon the scene, ray darling ; it is you who were 
 made the confident of my thoughts and the poor 
 tomb saw less of me." 
 
 By this time they had got to a small, circular 
 clearing, hemmed in bj' tall, tapering pines, in the 
 centre of which, flooded by the white moonlight, 
 stood a very simple tomb ," a kind of large marble 
 sarcophagus on a low pedestal of black stone. The 
 inscription stated that the body of Anne Louise 
 
75 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 Th^rSse Countess de Treraeillan had been laid to 
 rest there on the 2nd September, 1850. 
 
 The young people stepped slowly up to the tomb, 
 deeply affected, and keeping close to one another's 
 side. 
 
 "We shall be married soon," whispered Mar- 
 gu6rite, her voice quivering with emotion. " We 
 must ask my mother for her blessing." They knelt 
 on the edge of the black pedestal and rested their 
 heads against the sarcophagus. 
 
 They remained in that position and amidst the 
 deep silence for a long while, wholly given up to the 
 mystic poesy of that solitary grave. 
 
 At last, after a long and heartfelt prayer, Mar- 
 guerite raised her head, but at the same moment 
 she uttered a cry and started terrified to her feet. 
 
 A dark figure stood on the other side of the tomb, 
 and from beneath the hood that partly concealed 
 the face a pair of eyes looked fixedly and angrily at 
 her. 
 
 Armand, on hearing Marguerite's cry of distress 
 had started to his feet also, and rushed to the 
 strange apparition. But Marguerite, who had re- 
 covered her presence of mind, had recognised the 
 indistinct form. With a shriek, she checked his 
 further progress. 
 
 " Don't touch her, don't touch her," she cried out, 
 " it's la Terreuse." 
 
 Margu6rite and Armaud turned in the direction of 
 the house. Just before they left the clearing, 
 Armand looked back and saw la Terreuse still 
 standing motionless in the same spot. 
 
 He had often noticed the old woman gathering 
 dead wood in the park, and he remembered Mar- 
 guerite having pointed her out once, and having said, 
 " This is the only enejny I have got in the 
 country. Do what I will to lier, she never has a 
 kind word for me. But I believe the poor creature 
 is off her head." 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 77 
 
 For a few moments they walked on in silence. 
 Though neither of them was a coward, or 
 given to strange fancies, the unexpected appear- 
 ance of the old woman had somewhat upset 
 them. 
 
 " What did la Terreuse want there at this hour ? " 
 asked Armand, as if replying to a question which at 
 that moment was uppermost in his companion's 
 mind. 
 
 " This is by no means the first time I have seen 
 her near the tomb on the anniversary of my mother's 
 death. I am afraid she did not like my mother 
 either. I cannot account for it, because it seems 
 that she has given proofs of extraordinary devotion 
 to my father." 
 
 A few minutes afterwards they entered the house. 
 The vicar had resumed his backgammon with 
 Monsieur de Rigny. -Count de Tremeillan, seated at 
 a large open window, was staring dreamily and 
 fixedly into the dark space beyond. 
 
 Margu6rite sat down at the piano. Monsieur de 
 Rigny having been beaten, Armand took his place 
 opposite the old vicar of Bonnieres, who gleefully 
 took advantage of the mistakes of his young 
 adversary, caused by the voice of Marguerite, 
 which rose pure and sweet upon the silence of the 
 huge drawing-room. 
 
 " Monsieur le Cur6," said Armand, between two 
 throws of the dice, " you have been at Bonnieres a 
 long while, have not you ? " 
 
 " Over twenty-five years, dear Monsieur Armand," 
 replied the old priest. " That counts up, does 
 not it ? " 
 
 " A very nice population to deal with, is not it ? " 
 
 " Excellent." 
 
 " It must be a very pleasant mission to be the 
 pastor of so docile a flock. The other day I saw 
 the son of one of our tenants who has a living in one 
 of the outskirts of Paris, He is very wretched. 
 
78 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 apart from the fact that his parishioners use their 
 knives on very slight provocation. It appears that 
 this population of the stone quarries is a very bad 
 one. He told me that he did not like to come home 
 after dark." 
 
 " I have never been obliged to have that kind of 
 fear," said the vicar, throwing his dice with an 
 animation altogether free from care. 
 
 " I should say not," remarked Armand. " I am 
 sure that since you have been at Bonni&res there 
 has not been a single offence among those worthy 
 people, except perhaps a slight infraction of the 
 game laws." 
 
 The vicar's face became very serious all at once, 
 and assumed an expression which Armand had 
 never noticed before. 
 
 " My dear Monsieur," answered the priest, " it 
 were well to remember this : the most humble priest 
 of the smallest and best behaved village in France 
 is made the recipient of things that would make 
 people's hair stand on end. There are hidden 
 crimes in apparently the most peaceable and virtuous 
 communities." 
 
 The vicar drew a deep sigh and quickly brushed 
 his hand across his forehead as if to drive away 
 some terrible recollection. Then he turned once 
 more to the game. 
 
 CHAPTER Xn. 
 
 A FEW days went by, during which Armand never 
 as much as mentioned to his friend Andr^ the subject 
 which had been so cruelly worrying him for the last 
 week. 
 
 But though the young barrister preserved com- 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 79 
 
 plete silence, Andre suspected what was uppermost 
 in his mind. He had caught him several times 
 pouring over that volume of The Gazette des Trihunaux, 
 at others he had seen him turn over files of papers, 
 grown yellow with age, which he had brought back 
 one morning from Monsieur Loiseau's, his father's 
 former clerk. It was, therefore, patent that Armand 
 kept thinking of that unfortunate Torqueni6 busi- 
 ness, that he was trying to form an opinion, and to 
 get at the truth from beneath the mass of overlying 
 matter. 
 
 One evening, at dinner, he told his mother and 
 Andre that he was going away for a few days. 
 
 " I want to go to Paris," he said. " The wedding 
 will be at the end of the month, and I want to make 
 some purchases." . 
 
 When he was alone with Andre he told him the 
 real nature of his journey. 
 
 " I am going to Evreux," he said. " I am going 
 to look for that poor Torqueni6, and will question 
 him once more. The more I think of this unhappy 
 business the darker and more mysterious it appears 
 to me. I cannot go on being worried about it as I 
 am. For if the man really turned out to be inno- 
 cent " It was the first time that he expressed 
 
 the doubt, and it was a sign of a great reaction 
 having taken place in his mind. 
 
 Two days later Armand got to Evereux. But the 
 most difficult thing was to find the man of whom he 
 was in search. He went to make inquiries of the 
 police, and was told that the discharged convict 
 Torquenie had been employed in a button factory in 
 the outskirts. He had been engaged to do odd 
 jobs, but was obliged to leave at the end of two 
 days. 
 
 The proprietor having found out who and what he 
 was, had dismissed him. After that he still tried to 
 get a miserable pittance by turning his hand to the 
 most menial work ; but his unsatisfactory antece- 
 
°° A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 dents had proved a bar everywhere. The commis- 
 sary, lest he should starve to death, had authorised 
 him to get a hurdy-giirdy and to beg for alms in the 
 town. But the other beggars, and especially those 
 who had their pitch at the cathedral door, had pro- 
 tested against a miserable jail bird taking the bit of 
 bread they owed to public charity out of their 
 mouths. They had "chevied" him from any and 
 every vantage point. The lads of the town had not 
 been slow to get scent of him, to point the finger at 
 him, and to raise a hue and cry the moment he 
 appeared. 
 
 " Really, Monsieur," said the commissary," the 
 police ought not to have to admit such a thing, seeing 
 that it is its duty to watch the man, but 1 am bound 
 to tell you that we do not know what has become of 
 him for the last two days. It is by no means unlikely 
 that he has jumped into the river, for, from what I 
 have been told, he was reduced to the last straits. 
 Candidly speaking, the loss would not be a great 
 one," he added in the guise of conclusion, " for these 
 folk are a great trouble to us." 
 
 Armand took his leave of the commissary, at a 
 loss what to do, and very much upset. The idea 
 that this poor wretch was, perhaps, dying of hunger 
 and privation, a prey to the horrible temptation of 
 taking his own life, caused him inexpressible anguish. 
 From what he had just gathered, he perceived well 
 enough that a protracted search would be useless, and 
 that he, Armand, alone and a stranger to the town, 
 would fail in hunting up the man, seeing that even 
 the police were ignorant of his whereabouts. There 
 was, therefore, nothing to be done but to return 
 whence he had come, to take the train back to 
 Rennes. 
 
 Still, he had by no means got over his emotion 
 when, on the evening of the same day, he walked to 
 the station, having relinquished all hopes of finding 
 Jean Torqueni6. Though the innocence of the man 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 8l 
 
 seemed to him far from proved, he would have liked 
 to question him, to read his very soul, and to form a 
 personal opinion on that drama, which was fast assum- 
 ing strange and mysterious proportions. 
 
 Armand d'Arcay was pondering all these things in his 
 mind while walking along the long road that leads from 
 the town to the railway station. 
 
 It was a dark night, and the man who carried his bag 
 was walking a few steps in front of him. 
 
 They were keeping along the wall of the large park 
 of a private estate, when all of a sudden a kind of 
 shadow started from an angle, and at the same time a 
 low voice fell upon his ear. 
 
 " Monsieur, for the love of God, give me something 
 to buy a bit of bread." 
 
 The man who carried Armand's luggage had turned, 
 at some distance there was a smoky street lamp that 
 cast a feeble light on that part of the road. But 
 feeble as was the light it enabled the porter to recognise 
 the beggar. 
 
 "Ah, by heaven ! Do not give him anything. Mon- 
 sieur," he said quickly to Armand. " Do you know who 
 the vagabond is ? He came the other day to our place, 
 and the governor would not let us give him as much 
 as a crust. He has been in a convict prison, the 
 skunk." 
 
 The man had stepped back, and prompted, no doubt, 
 by a feeling of shame, slunk back to the hole which 
 sheltered him. But Armand stepped up to him. 
 
 " Is it true that you have been in prison ? " he asked 
 him. 
 
 The beggar did not answer. 
 
 Neither of them spoke for a moment or so. 
 
 " Is not your name Jean Torqueni^ ? " persisted 
 Armand, speaking in a lower tone of voice. 
 
 " Do you know me ? " asked the man in an undescrib- 
 able tone of fear and surprise. 
 
 "Yes, and I was looking out for you. Come along 
 ■with me." 
 
82 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 " Gome along with you. Where to ? " 
 
 " Back to the town. I want to speak to you." 
 
 " I am afraid, Monsieur, I have not got the strength 
 to walk as far as that." 
 
 " Very well. There is an inn near here. Follow me 
 to the inn." Armand went on in front, the man dragging 
 himself along behind him, and leaning heavily on a kind 
 of vine pole. 
 
 He seemed altogether knocked up. 
 
 The place which Armand had termed an inn was a 
 kind of queer drinking-shop, frequented by the lower 
 class of railway employes and agricultural labourers of 
 the neighbourhood who had to wait for the train. 
 The tap-room had a low ceiling, and was smoke-begrimed. 
 Two or three customers were sleeping off their 
 potations of cider-brandy in attitudes resembling those 
 of wild brutes at rest. An old woman was knitting 
 a stocking behind the shaky trestles that did duty as a 
 counter. 
 
 Armand paid the man who carried his luggage, pre- 
 tending not to notice his gestures of surprise and the 
 looks of stupefaction which he cast at him and at his 
 strange companion. 
 
 Then he went up to the old woman and asked her 
 for a room where they could be by themselves. The 
 woman got up with a growl at being disturbed, lighted a 
 candle and showed them into a black hole where there 
 was a table and two wooden benches supported on 
 stakes that had been driven into the mud floor. She 
 placed a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses on the 
 table and went away. 
 
 Armand beckoned Jean Torqueni^ to sit" down 
 opposite him. " Do not you recognise me?" he asked 
 of the convict, while he remained standing. 
 
 The man raised his head and Armand could not help 
 shuddering as he looked at the wretched face. It was 
 still more sunken, more attenuated than when he had 
 looked at it at Rennes a fortnight previously. There 
 were deep red rings round the feverish, bright eyes ; the 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 83 
 
 skin was covered with a yellowish, mouldy film, the 
 underlip drooped. 
 
 Torqueni6 stared fixedly at the young barrister, but he 
 did not seem to see him at all. He was pressing his 
 stomach with one of his clenched hands, and muttered, 
 " I am hungry." 
 
 Armand opened the door and told the woman to bring 
 some bread. 
 
 The poor fellow flung himself upon it like a wild 
 animal, eating ravenously without looking up, cramming 
 it into his mouth with both hands, in order to go 
 quicker. Armand poured him out a glass of wine, which 
 he gulped down with the same eagerness. 
 
 After a few minutes, when his hur\ger had 
 evidently somewhat subsided, Armand repeated his 
 question — 
 
 " Do you recognise me ?" 
 
 Torquenid shook his head to say that he did not. 
 
 " You came to see me at Rennes a fortnight ago,'' 
 Armand said. " You asked me to help you, pretending 
 that the law had made an error in your case." 
 
 Torquenid left him no time to finish, he made a 
 sudden movement as if to withdraw. 
 
 " Ah, you are the judge's son," he said, giving him 
 a terrible look. 
 
 " Look you here," said Armand, drawing closer to 
 him. " I wish to forget all that has occurred between 
 us, the insults you flung at a dear and sacred memory. 
 You have suffered much, you are suffering still, and 
 we ought to be lenient towards those who suffer. 
 If you are guilty you have cruelly expiated your double 
 crime." 
 
 "I am innocent," said Jean Torqueni6 with the 
 harrowing accents and sullen energy that always marked 
 the assertion. 
 
 "You must prove it." 
 
 "I will prove it," said the man, bringing his fist 
 down on the table. " Since I have been here, exposed 
 to every insult, to every privation, struggling to keep 
 
84 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 body and soul together, I have been tempted more than 
 once to make an end of this horrible existence. But I 
 have always been borne up by the idea of proving my 
 innocence, of being able to hold up my head ; in short, 
 to be a man again." 
 
 He dropped his head in his clenched hands and 
 sat utterly crushed for a moment. " I wanted to work 
 in order to earn money and to pay a barrister. I 
 have been insulted, hounded away ever)rwhere. This 
 is the first bit of bread I have eaten these three days. 
 Yes, for three days I have been prowling in the out- 
 skirts of the town like a wild beast, not daring to go 
 near other men. What am I to do, great God, to 
 prove that the law has made a mistake. The other 
 day, on leaving your house, humiliated, in despair, I 
 applied to another barrister. W'hen I told him the 
 motive of my call, he mentioned money. All I had in 
 the world was fivepence. Ah, if Monsieur Rousseau 
 were still alive. He knew me, he did, he knew that 
 I had been the victim of a terrible mistake, and he 
 would have taken up my case ; he was a grand and 
 noble nature." 
 
 " Your former counsel is dead ? " 
 
 " I believe so. Shortly after my arrival at the con- 
 vict station, I wrote to him, and he answered my 
 letter. We corresponded for about three years. He 
 always told me to hope, that he had an idea of having 
 found the right clue, that he would not give me up, 
 and that he would do all he could to get me out of 
 prison. Then I did not hear from him for many 
 months. My letters remained unanswered. I made 
 sure that he was dead to have forgotten me as he did. 
 I wrote several years afterwards to a man in Rennes 
 whom I knew, begging him to make some inquiries 
 about Monsieur Rousseau. He answered me that 
 people in town did not know what had become of him. 
 After that I gave up all hope. I understood that I 
 was alone in the world, and I felt more unhappy than 
 ever. 
 
A VILLAGB PRIfiST. 85 
 
 Jean Torquenie drew a long, deep sigh, and re- 
 lapsed into his state of despondency. Armand 
 d'Arcay looked at him quickly. He seemed to 
 muster up all his courage, and to take a resolution 
 evidently very painful to him. 
 
 " If you are really innocent," he said, slowly, and 
 in a low voice, putting his head close to tliat of 
 Torquenie, " I will be to you all that the man of 
 whom you speak would have been. I pledge you 
 my oath that I shall leave no stone unturned to get 
 you the justice you ask for. My personal endeavours, 
 such talent as I possess, all the influence I can dis- 
 pose of will be used to free your name from infamy, 
 to get you out of the wretched condition in which you 
 are. But, from the day I undertake to do this, I shall 
 be your judge, I shall reopen the inquiry from the 
 • very beginning, I shall question such to the witnesses 
 as are still alive, I will find the key to this obscure 
 mystery, and I shall take no steps to have your 
 innocence publicly acknowledged until I myself am 
 thoroughly convinced of that innocence." 
 
 As Armand proceeded, a bright look had come 
 into the pale and emaciated face of the former 
 convict. 
 
 " But if you are going to do this, I am saved," he 
 said" at last, almost joyously. " Ah, Monsieur," he 
 went on, " think of all I have suffered, think of the 
 harsh behaviour of the judge who interrogated me, 
 and forgive me if I forgot myself and cursed him. 
 You are good and generous ; I feel, I see it, you 
 have given me bread when I was dying with hunger, 
 you have restored a gleam of hope to me. Yes, I 
 want to live now, I want to live. What do you 
 wish me to do. Monsieur ? Speak, question me, I 
 remember every detail as if it were yesterday. Re- 
 member that for twenty long years I have thought 
 of nothing else but this, and the slightest particulars 
 are perfectly vivid to my mind." 
 
 " At present you are too weak to prolong this 
 
86 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 interview, and I myselt, betore questioning you, want 
 to think, and to review the whole affair over again. 
 I shall take steps to make you come to Rennes. In 
 that way you will be at hand when I want you, and 
 it will make my inquiry less difficult. Meanwhile 
 take this money," he said, taking his purse from his 
 pocket. " You will take up your quarters in this or 
 any other place, and you shall send me your address. 
 My name is Armand d'Arcay, I live at Rennes, 
 where everyone knows me. The moment I hava 
 got the necessary permission I will let you know, 
 and you shall come to Brittany. Nay, do not 
 thank me," added the young barrister, getting up. 
 " If you are innocent, I shall only have done my 
 duty ; if you are guilty, and if you have lied to me, 
 I shall have signally avenged the memory of my 
 po'or father by returning you good for evil." 
 
 With this Armand put his purse on the table and 
 left the inn, leaving poor Jean Torqueni6 absolutely 
 dazed by what had happened. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Almost immediately after his return to Rennes 
 Armand went to see one of the judges, an old friend 
 of his father, and asked him about the necessary 
 formalities to transfer a discharged convict from the 
 town that had been assigned to him to Rennes. He 
 told him that he took an interest in the man. 
 
 " According to you, then, there are not enough 
 scamps in our town ? " replied the magistrate 
 curtly. 
 
 " I am certain that the man will behave aU right," 
 said Armand. 
 
 •' Are you very anxious about the thing ? " 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 87 
 
 " Very, my dear Monsieur Dubourg." 
 
 The judge went to his writing-table to put down 
 the particulars. " What is his name ? " he asked. 
 
 " Jean Torqueni6." 
 
 The judge was trying to recollect. " It is one of 
 the last cases my friend d'Arcay investigated, and it 
 was handled in a masterly manner. But is not it 
 rather odd that the son should take an interest in 
 the man whom the father was instrumental in con- 
 victing ? " 
 
 " Torquenie was Count deTremeillan'sgamekeeper, 
 and you are no doubt aware of my forthcoming 
 marriage with Mademoiselle de Tremeillan." 
 
 The judge seemed to consider the explanation a 
 valid one. " After all," he said, the man cannot be 
 very dangerous. He was goaded into crime through 
 love ; it is a species of ridiculous and at the same 
 time gentle criminal. It would be a good thing if 
 the Government did not send us anything more 
 dangerous than that. But I am sorry to say, friend, 
 that the Emperor is like you, too good." Armand 
 did not ask Monsieur Dubourg to what he was 
 alluding, nor why the Emperor's name was introduced 
 in connection with a discharged convict. He said a 
 few words of thanks to the judge and rose to go. 
 B.ut when he got as far as the door, he stood still, 
 seemed to consider for a moment. 
 
 " Oh, by the by. Monsieur Dubourg," he said, 
 coming back to the writing-table, " you who knew all 
 the particulars of the Torquenie affair, can you tell 
 me what became of the counsel for the defence ? " 
 
 " Do you mean Rousseau ? " asked the magistrate, 
 sharply raising his head. " I really trust you are 
 not going to interest yourself in him also," he added, 
 turning crimson, his eyes lighting up with a sudden 
 fire. 
 
 " I was told he was dead." 
 
 " He dead ? Do that kind of people ever die ? " 
 exclaimed Monsieur Dubourg in an irritable tone. 
 
gg A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 "No, worse luck, he is not dead. And I can even 
 tell you for the gratification of kind-hearted people 
 who, like yourself, take an interest in criminals, that 
 his precious person has been restored to us." 
 
 Armand looked so utterly at a loss to understand 
 Judge Dubourg's meaning that the latter thought it 
 necessary to explain. 
 
 " Rousseau was a dangerous fellow. We packed 
 him off to Africa in 1852. But the Emperor has 
 thought fit to remit his sentence, and he has been 
 back in Rennes for the last fortnight. If you care 
 to leave your card, he lives in the same house with 
 Loiseau, the former clerk to your father, in the Rue 
 des Canettes. 
 
 A few minutes afterwards Armand groped his 
 way along a dark and narrow passage. Through 
 a door that stood ajar in the passage he could 
 hear a chirping and twittering loud enough to deafen 
 people. 
 
 An old woman pounced upon him from a black 
 hole that did duty as a kitchen. 
 
 " What is it you want ? " she asked, sniffing round 
 Armand like a cross-grained mongrel. 
 
 " I believe Monsieur Rousseau lives here ? " 
 
 " Yes, on the third floor, to the left." 
 
 Armand climbed up the rickety, steep, and worn 
 staircase, and got to the third floor. A window in 
 the roof shed a faint light on that part of the stair- 
 case, the first flights of which were wrapt in utter 
 darkness. To the left he noticed a low door, taking 
 up almost the whole of the panel. 
 
 Armand knocked at it, but no one answered. He 
 knocked again, and louder this time. Then it was 
 opened slowly and cautiously by an old man, evi- 
 dently afraid of the cold, and wrapt up to the chin 
 in an old and threadbare dressing-gown, which 
 showed the outlines of his terribly thin and emaciated 
 frame. One hand was still on the latch, while the 
 other held a pair of tongs. 
 
A VltLAGE PRIEST. 8g 
 
 " Monsieur Rousseau ? " said Armand. 
 
 " I — I am Monsieur Rousseau," said the old man, 
 in a low and halting voice. But seeing that he re- 
 mained perfectly still behind the partly-open door, 
 merely casting a suspicious look at the stranger who 
 had thus come upon him, Armand said — 
 
 " I have come to ask you, Monsieur Rousseau, to 
 see and give me a few minutes' conversation. You may 
 be able, perhaps, to perform an act of kindness." 
 
 The door opened a little wider, and the old man 
 stood aside to let Armand pass. At the end of a 
 narrow passage the young barrister found himself in 
 a small, poorly furnished room, the brick floor ol 
 which had all its colour worn off, and was littered 
 with dusty books and newspapers. A rickety arm- 
 chair, with one of its castors gone, stood near the 
 grate, in which there burned a rather bright fire. 
 
 Monsieur Rousseau dropped into the arm-chair, 
 stirred .the fire, and warmed his hands at the flame. 
 Armand had taken a chair, and seated himself in 
 front of him. He felt as if in a dream. He could 
 scarcely believe that this diminutive old man, look- 
 ing so ill and crestfallen, was the proud and impas- 
 sioned man of old, whose great talent, whose fiery 
 eloquence he had often heard mentioned during his 
 childhood. Two wisps of greyish hair tumbled 
 anyhow over the prominent, deeply-lined forehead. 
 The eyes looked utterly dull, the mouth had lost all 
 expression, he was constantly shivering from head to 
 foot. 
 
 " Monsieur," said Armand, when his first feeling ol 
 surprise had sufficiently subsided to restore his self- 
 control and to break the ice — " Monsieur, I am 
 afraid you will think my request somewhat in- 
 discreet and out of the usual way ? " 
 
 Seeing that the old man neither stirred nor looked 
 up, but sat perfectly still, his head bent towards the 
 fire, and utterly lost in his own thoughts, Armand 
 felt compelled to go on. 
 
go A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 " Years ago you practised in this town, and in the 
 course of your professional duties you took up the 
 defence of a poor devil whom your talent failed to 
 save from prison ? I am alluding to Jean Tor- 
 quenie." 
 
 At the mention of that name the old man shivered 
 and passed his trembling hand across his fore- 
 head. 
 
 " In fact, I recollect," he said. " Why do you ask 
 me all this, Monsieur ? " 
 
 Armand d'Arcay felt painfully affected. The 
 poor man facing him seemed as far gone intellectually 
 as physically. His words came slowly, obstructed 
 by a horrible stammer. 
 
 " The man has just been discharged from prison ; 
 he pretends that he is innocent." 
 
 " That is true, the law in this instance did an 
 infamous thing," said the erstwhile barrister, whose 
 looks seemed to grow animated as of yore. 
 
 Shocked as he felt by this vigorous affirmation, 
 Armand did not betray his feelings. 
 
 " He pretends that he was the victim of a judicial 
 error and wants to take steps for a revision of his 
 sentence." 
 
 "He is right, very right indeed," said the old 
 man, his sudden animation making his articulation 
 more painful still. He made a powerful effort to 
 speak distinctly, but the lips that had been so 
 eloquent in bygone days only twitched and trembled 
 convulsively. 
 
 " Yes, he is right. That man's innocence should 
 be proved before he dies. His honest name should 
 be restored to him. Ah! if I were only able . . . 
 if they had not taken the life out of me." 
 
 He waved his arms in despair and uttered a 
 hoarse yell, then he dropped heavily back into the 
 arm-chair, from which he had tried to rise. 
 
 " The man has entrusted me with his defence, 
 and I have accepted," Armand went on ; " but on 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. QI 
 
 condition that he first of all should clearly prove his 
 innocence to me." 
 
 "You are right. One should only take up just 
 causes," assented the old man, drawing up his frame 
 bent by age and sickness. 
 
 " I thought. Monsieur, that you might be able to 
 give me some useful hints on the affair." 
 
 " I can give you more than hints," said Monsieur 
 Rousseau ; then he looked the young fellow straight 
 in the face. " I can give you proofs." 
 
 " Monsieur," Armand went on ; "I am bound to 
 tell you the whole truth. You should know who I 
 am. My name is Armand d'Arcay ; I am the son of 
 the judge who conducted the preliminary in- 
 terrogatory." 
 
 Monsieur Rousseau did not seem in the least 
 surprised. 
 
 " This is a good and noble thought of yours. Mon- 
 sieur," he said. " You are doing your duty. Your 
 father cruelly harassed the man, and his disgrace is 
 mainly owing to your father ; he was the cause of his 
 having 'been condemned to twenty years' penal ser- 
 vitude. I must own that I failed to understand at 
 first his bitter stubbornness against that unfortunate 
 Torqueni6. To me his conduct seemed nothing 
 short of infamous. But I found out differently 
 afterwards. Within two years of the affair your 
 father went mad, and I have learned since that he 
 was no longer in the possession of his mental facul- 
 ties when he was entrusted with the affair. . . . 
 Torqueni6 has been the victim of a madman and of 
 a great criminal." 
 
 The effort to say as much consecutively seemed to 
 have thoroughly exhausted him. Armand also kept 
 silent for a few minutes ; he was utterly crushed by 
 what he had just heard. 
 
 The barrister had positively affirmed what up till 
 now had been to him but a painful possibility which his 
 mind refused to accept. He had formally declared 
 
92 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 that Monsieur d'Arcay had conducted the prelimin- 
 aries of the case witli the fixed idea of a mono- 
 maniac, with the irresponsibility of a madman. 
 
 After a few moments of silence, Armand went on, 
 " If, in fact, the proofs of which you speak are con- 
 clusive, I promise you. Monsieur, to defend Jean 
 Torquenie with all the ardour, if not with all the 
 talent, you yourself would have shown in this 
 cause." 
 
 "Will you come and see me the day after to- 
 morrow, Monsieur ? I am trying to put some of 
 these documents straight," he concluded, pointing 
 to the dusty papers that were littering the floor. 
 " They want looking over after so long an absence 
 of mine." 
 
 Armand rose and took his leave of the old bar- 
 rister, after having promised him to come back the 
 day after next at two o'clock. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Armand's marriage was fixed to take place shortly, 
 but his own happiness did not make him lose sight 
 of the unfortunate man whom he had promised to 
 befriend. He had told Andre of the particulars of 
 his journey to Evreux, and of the interview with the 
 proscribed old barrister. The painter had heartily 
 congratulated his friend on the generous determina- 
 tion at which he had arrived, and having had to 
 return to Paris because of his work, had promised 
 him to come back for his wedding. 
 
 " I also trust to hear very shortly of your maiden 
 speech in the Torquenie aftair," he added. " What 
 a lucky thing to be able to start with such a case as 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 93 
 
 that. Why it will make a sensation. People wilJ 
 be talking of it from one end of France to the, 
 other." 
 
 Armand spent the following day with Marguerite de 
 Tr^meillan. He went to " d'Albrays," and during the 
 whole of that lovely, fragrant summer day they strolled 
 about in the park, talking of the. past, and dreaming of 
 the future. 
 
 When the young girl felt tired they sat down on some 
 stone seat, which the water, dropping from the trees, 
 had covered with a greenish fur, and they chatted, 
 oblivious of the passing hour. 
 
 " How happy I will be near you," said Marguerite, 
 nestling her head on Armand's shoulder. " What a 
 change in my life." 
 
 " Dear darling, you have not been happy up till now 
 then?" 
 
 " Yes, whenever you were near me," replied the 
 young girl, fixing her handsome, candid, and sweet 
 eyes on him. "The rest of the time I tried not to 
 think by riding and roaming the park, gun in 
 hand, like a boy. But when I had to go back to the 
 house " 
 
 She did not finish the sentence, and a slight shiver 
 ran through the marble white shoulders, perceptible 
 beneath the pink muslin bodice. 
 
 " Yes, I understand," said Armand, devining the 
 nature of the thoughts that had beclouded the young 
 girl's face. 
 
 " Oh, if I had rot met with you," she went on, 
 clasping her hands, " if I had not had your affection 
 to bear me up with the idea that one day my life 
 would be different ; if my heart had not been full of 
 you- 
 
 Again she paused for awhile. 
 
 "Can you imagine," she went on at last, "what a 
 heart like mine, hungering for kindness, for affection, 
 eager to cling joyously to someone, must suffer in the 
 constant presence of that stern and sad face ? " 
 
54 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 And she glanced rather than pointed in the 
 direction of the house where her father, Count de 
 Tremeillan, as usual, sat near the open window, 
 motionless like a statue. 
 
 " Never an affectionate word, never as much as a 
 caress, a kind of chilling politeness, as he might 
 have shown to a stranger. One might as well be 
 dead. He does not care for me, and, as for myself, 
 I have never felt for him the loving affection one 
 should feel for one's parents, the affection I should 
 have felt for my mother had she been alive." 
 
 " Don't think of this any more, dear, darling 
 Marguerite," said Armand, taking both her hands in 
 his. " Remember that your father has been really 
 kind when he gave you to me, of whom he scarcely 
 knew anything. He is naturally stern and severe, 
 like all those who labour under a fixed idea. 
 Political passion has one by one broken all the 
 fibres of his heart, and withered all feeling of 
 affection. Nevertheless, you have seen that he can 
 enact the loving father when your happiness was at 
 stake. I may confess that I scarcely expected so 
 favourable an answer when I was bold enough to 
 ask for your hand. I knew his prejudices with 
 regard to noble birth, and I do not pretend to trace 
 my pedigree back to the Crusaders. My fortune is 
 far from being equal to yours. We must, therefore, 
 conclude that he was influenced by our love for one 
 another, and that he did not hesitate to forego some 
 of his pet ideas to insure your happiness." 
 
 "You are right, Armand dear. Let us talk ot 
 something else," said Marguerite, who had scarcely 
 paid attention to his last sentence. 
 
 And the Count de Tremeillan was dismissed from 
 their minds, in which love reigned supreme once 
 more. 
 
 Armand had promised his mother to be back at 
 Rennes for dinner. The day was waning, and it 
 was time to go ; so he took Marguerite back to the 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 95 
 
 house, promising to come and see her next morning 
 early, as he had a business appointment later on. 
 
 Marguerite smiled. " I trust people will not say 
 that I am marrying a briefless barrister. I shall be 
 ver}' delighted to hear your speeches. Good-bye, 
 then, dearest, till to-morrow." And she held up 
 her head, on which Armand pressed a long, long kiss ; 
 then he got into his little trap, and soon disappeared 
 at a bend in the principal drive. 
 
 Marguerite, standing at the bottom of the shallow 
 flight of steps, watched him until the trees of the 
 park hid him from her sight, then with a sad sigh 
 she went up the stone steps that led to the hall and 
 dining-room. 
 
 When Armand got to the end of the park, and 
 near the gamekeeper's lodge, he checked the pace of 
 his horse. He carefully examined the small, ivy- 
 mantled tenement, its garden, its quickset hedge, as 
 if to wrest from those mute witnesses the secret 
 which for the last few days had so seriously occu- 
 pied his mind. 
 
 A few steps further on he came upon an old 
 woman gathering wood by the roadside. She wore 
 the long black hooded cloak which is the mourning 
 garment of the women of Brittany, 
 
 Having looked up for a moment as Armand drove 
 by, Armand recognised la Terreuse, that strange and 
 half-witted creature which he had met several times 
 in. the neighbourhood of the house, and who had 
 so thoroughly frightened Marguerite de Tremeillan 
 on the evening she had found her standing by her 
 mother's tomb. 
 
 The part this woman had enacted, twenty years 
 previously, in the Torquenie trial, and her important 
 evidence before the Court, gave Armand the idea 
 that it would be necessary perhaps to appeal to her 
 recollections in the inquiry he meant to set afoot. 
 So he stopped his horse and alighted, pretending 
 that there was something wrong with one of the traces. 
 
96 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 He was but a few steps away from la Terreiise, 
 but the latter seemed to take no notice of him. 
 
 " Gathering store for the winter already, mother ? " 
 said Armand, pretending to be busy with the 
 harness. 
 
 The woman turned her back and did not answer. 
 Armand declined to be put off in that way. 
 
 " It is very hard to have to do that kind of thing 
 at your age," he remarked. " Have you no one to 
 help you. Surely you are not alone in the world ? " 
 
 " What is that to you ? " mumbled la Terreuse, 
 growling like a cross-grained dog. 
 
 '• I have often noticed you near the house. You 
 know that I am going to marry Mademoiselle 
 Tremeillan very shortly. Let me give you my 
 wedding present." With this he took a couple of 
 gold pieces from his pocket. But la Terreuse drew 
 back quickly. 
 
 " I do not ask for charity," she said in a hard 
 voice. " You may keep your money." Then she 
 seemed all of a sudden to become modified, and 
 slowly drew nearer to Armand. 
 
 " Oh, so you are the barrister," she said, looking 
 at him from top to toe. " The master has told me of 
 you. You like him, don't you ? " 
 
 " Whom ? " 
 
 " The master." 
 
 " I am very fond of his daughter," said Armand 
 smiling. 
 
 "You must also be fond of the Count 
 
 You should take care that people do not do him any 
 harm." 
 
 " And who would want to do him any harm ? " 
 asked Armand, rather surprised at this. 
 
 " No one, no one," muttered the old woman, 
 evidently put out. " I am a bit weak in the head, I 
 am so old." With this she was about to turn away. 
 
 " Do you live near here ? " asked Armand, who was 
 anxious for her to stay. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 97 
 
 " Over there," was the answer as she held up 
 her stick in the direction of the former gamekeeper's 
 lodge. Then she tried to get away once more, 
 dragging the wood she had made into a faggot behind 
 her. 
 
 "You are a plucky woman,"' said Armand ; "you 
 arc not afraid of ghosts then ? " 
 
 La Terreuse left go hold of her faggot and veered 
 round suddenly. 
 
 " Why . . . what ghosts . . . What do you 
 ' mean ? " she asked in one breath, fixing her dark and 
 piercing eyes, that flashed from beneath her black hood 
 on the young barrister. 
 
 " Years ago a woman was poisoned in there." 
 
 " The dead are dead right enough. Why should she 
 come back ? Why ? " 
 
 She seemed terribly excited, and her tanned and 
 deeply-lined face twitched nervously. 
 
 Armand was not slow to notice the uncommon agita- 
 tion. He was aware of the superstitions of country 
 people and of the legends that find such easy credence 
 among the Breton peasantry. 
 
 " I have been told," he said, dropping his voice with 
 an air of mystery, " that on moonlight nights she is 
 often seen prowling round the house." 
 
 "Who, what? Of whom are you talking? I have 
 never seen aught of the kind. . . . Nothing, 
 nothing at all, do you hear.", 
 
 "Others may have seen her. I am talking of 
 Marianne, the wife of Jean Torqueni^. You know her, 
 you nursed her in her last illness." 
 
 " Well, and did she not say that I nursed her well ? " 
 asked the old woman, who had recovered all her energy, 
 and who now looked Armand straight in the face, her 
 eyes unflinchingly fixed on his. 
 
 " She says that it was not her husband who poisoned 
 her." 
 
 " I have never heard a word of all this. If any 
 one had met her, I should have been told of it right 
 
gS A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 enough," said la Terreuse, looking at Armand with 
 a defiant air. " Why do you come and talk to me 
 of all these old stories ? I have forgotten all about 
 them." 
 
 She turned away and went slowly in the direction 
 of the lodge. A young peasant lad with a shockhead 
 of hair who lived with her, came to take her faggot 
 and helped her in getting up the shallow flight of 
 steps. 
 
 Armand got into his trap and never drew rein 
 until he got to Rennes. 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 Next day Armand punctually called at the time 
 appointed by Monsieur Rousseau. The old lawyer 
 was seated by the fire, and notwithstanding the 
 radiant summer sun outside was warming his hands 
 at the flame. 
 
 Armand felt deeply moved at thesight of the man 
 who had suffered so much, and whose whole appear- 
 ance showed traces of his cruel tortures. 
 
 Although he had heard a great deal of harm said 
 during his childhood with regard to the barrister's 
 mode of life, although the somewhat narrow-minded 
 manner in which he, Armand, had been brought up, 
 made him dissent from the principles Monsieur 
 Rousseau professed, he did not share Justice 
 Dubourg's admiration for the institutions of tl.e 
 Second Empire, nor the latter's hatred of those who 
 had been vanquished in their resistance to the Coup 
 d'Etat of December, 1851. 
 
 He looked upon Monsieur Rousseau as an unfor- 
 tunate, misguided man, who had cruelly expiated his 
 errors by long years of suffering in the desert of 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 99 
 
 Lambessa, who had sacrificed his future, his talents, 
 and health to his opinions. Face to face with such 
 misfortune, Armand's noble and generous nature 
 only felt a deep and sincere pity. 
 
 As soon as Arniand had bade him good morning, 
 and taken his seat, Monsieur Rousseau took from a 
 small writing-table, close at hand, a file of papers 
 yellowed with age, and spread them on his lap. 
 
 " These," he said, in his painfully halting voice, 
 " are a few notes on the Torquenie affair which I 
 collected some years ago. They ma}' be useful to 
 you." 
 
 He laid his attenuated and shaking hand on the 
 file. " But before we go any further I should like to 
 know whether the principal actors in this drama are 
 still alive." 
 
 " As I told you," replied Armand, " I have seen 
 Torquenie, but I am not at all certain as to what 
 has become of the other witnesses at the trial, with 
 the exception of la Terreuse, who is still alive." 
 
 " Oh, mdeed," remarked Rousseau. " She is an 
 important witness. And the Count de Tremeillan, 
 is he alive also ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Armand. " And what is more, I am 
 going to marry Mademoiselle de Trem.eillan shortly." 
 
 Rousseau stared at the young barrister with a 
 look of indescribable surprise and interest. 
 
 " Oh," he said, " you are going to marry Mademoi- 
 selle de Tr6meillan ? " Then he dropped his eyes, 
 and sat silent for a little while. At last he untied 
 the string of the bundle of papers he had in his lap, 
 and with a listless air ran through the various docu- 
 ments it contained, as if wishing to collect his mind 
 before proceeding. 
 
 " If your marriage is so near," he said after a 
 while, " you will scarcely have time to see about the 
 business of this poor devil ; and you would do better, 
 perhaps, to confide these documents to one of your 
 colleagues," 
 
lOO A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 "You told me yourself the other day, Monsieur, that 
 it is my duty to defend the man, if he is innocent, and 
 to get a revision of his sentence. I am very fond of 
 my intended wife, and my marriage with her will 
 realise the dream of my life. But I trust to be able to 
 reconcile my love with my duty." 
 
 " Do you think you will ? " 
 
 There was such a tone of doubt in these five words 
 on Rousseau's part that Armand felt somewhat hurt. 
 
 " Why do you seem to doubt me. Monsieur ? Do 
 not you think that we also may be fully impressed with 
 the stern dictates of duty ? " 
 
 " I did not say that," replied Rousseau, gently. 
 " I believe you to be animated by the best intentions. 
 Yours is a kind heart, I am almost certain of it. But 
 there are unforeseen circumstances .... terrible 
 circumstances which may play havoc with the best of 
 resolutions." 
 
 " AVhat do you mean, Monsieur ? I am afraid I do 
 not understand you." 
 
 The old barrister remained silent for another little 
 while. He stirred his fire in a nervous manner that 
 showed his mental preoccupation, then he "rose from 
 his chair, and painfully shuffled up and down the 
 room. All at once he stopped right in front of 
 Armand. 
 
 " Then you are determined to take up this Torqueni^ 
 case ; to find out the real assassins of Marcellin de 
 Mortri^e and Marianne, to bring them to justice ; in 
 short, to prove the innocence of ... . this poor 
 fellow ? " he asked. 
 
 " I have firmly made up my mind," replied Armand. 
 " But why all these questions, Monsieur ? Do you 
 take me to be a child, and is the formal promise I 
 have already given to that effect not sufficient ? You 
 yourself told me this the other day. If my father 
 really wrested a false confession from this man by 
 intimidating him, we can only blame the terrible 
 malady that was already undermining him at the 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. lOl 
 
 time when he was entrusted with the task. He 
 acted without discernment. He was not guilty ! " 
 
 " And suppose he were guilty ? " asked Monsieur 
 Rousseau, folding his arms across his breast, and 
 staring Armand full in the face. 
 
 The young man shuddered and grew horribly 
 pale. Still, he replied in a firm tone — 
 
 " If such were the case, I should consider it more 
 urgent still to do my duty. I would defend this 
 man." 
 
 " Right, Monsieur, right indeed," said Rousseau, 
 warmly. "Yours is a noble nature, and a plucky 
 one besides. I will tell you all I know about this 
 affair. Some very cruel surprises may be in store 
 for you. But I wish to tell you at once that my 
 opinion with regard to your father is the one I told 
 you yesterday. He has been the unconscious in- 
 strument of the real perpetrators of this crime. He 
 assisted them without being their accomplice in the 
 least. He was not to blame for what he did." 
 
 CHAPTER XVL 
 
 Armand was intensely astonished at what he had 
 just heard, very anxious to know what Monsieur 
 Rousseau was driving at and the reason of this 
 cautious preamble before coming to the point. He 
 felt that a kind of vague uneasiness was torturing 
 him. He had the foreboding of some great calamity. 
 Still, he was far from suspecting the extent of the 
 blow that was to crush him. 
 
 After havmg sat still for a little while, as if to 
 gather his necessary strength. Monsieur Rousseau 
 began. His story was a long one, and it was made 
 longer still by the painful impediment in his 
 
102 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 ipeech. We give it as briefly as possible. "Mon- 
 sieur," said the old barrister, "I may take it for 
 granted that you have carefully gone through the 
 account of the trial with which we are concerned. 
 The Gazette des Tribunaux published a sufficiently 
 exact report of it, at any rate, as regards the facts. 
 I will pass by the more or less just appreciations the 
 writer thought fit to give of the incidents of the 
 trial." 
 
 Armand said that he had read through the whole 
 of the trial several times, and that he perfectly 
 remembered, and in their most minute particulars, 
 the examination of the prisoner and of the witnesses. 
 
 " That is all right then. Let us start at the be- 
 ginning then, namely, the indictment. There 
 already we find the sign of partiality and deliberate 
 onesidedness that cannot fail to strike one as we 
 proceed. Upon what, in fact, is the accusation 
 founded ? Upon a vague rumour, upon a slanderous 
 bit of gossip of a lot of peasant women, and pro- 
 pagated by a parcel of scamps who have a grudge 
 against Torquenie for having molested them in the 
 exercise of his duty. The whole of the indictment 
 is built upon that rumour. What is the upshot ? 
 The straining to invest the fable adopted with a 
 semblance of truth. In order to do this, both facts 
 and characters alike are twisted and misrepresented. 
 The Viscount de Mortr6e, who is the incarnation of 
 loyalty and honour, is held up as a vulgar profligate, 
 a perverted Don Juan who rewards the care and 
 hospitality of a capital fellow by seducing his wife. . 
 Marianne, that poor Marianne, so affectionate and 
 so passionately attached to her husband, becomes, 
 by the same means, an arrant coquette, who is 
 dazzled by the love of a gentleman. Torquenie was 
 as open as the day, though somewhat rough spoken. 
 They change him into a violent, jealous, vindictive 
 brute, capable of any and every crime. 
 
 " Political passion is dragged into the affair. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. IO3 
 
 Viscount de Mortree has incurred the hatred of the 
 country gentry all round, and of the religious folk 
 of Rennes by his independent ideas, by the admira- 
 tion he professes for the men and things of the 
 Revolution. The magistrates share these prejudices, 
 this aversion for the bold champion of the new ideas, 
 and they eagerly embrace the opportunity of show- 
 ing in the most odious and ridiculous light. i. i 
 
 " Far from me be it to condone altogether Viscount 
 de Mortree's conduct. He was no doubt guilty. But 
 his error was a pardonable one, and if there was a 
 woman in the case, he did not basely sully the 
 honour of the man who had received him beneath 
 his roof and saved him. 
 
 "But let us leave those general considerations aside, 
 and come to facts. I did not find out in a single 
 day- all that I am going to tell you now. It took me 
 a long time, and L was obliged to be very cautious, 
 so as not to alarm the real criminals. Moreover, 
 my professional duties and the political struggles 
 with which I was mixed up, left me no time unfortu- 
 nately to pursue the affair actively. If such had 
 not been the case I should have had the satisfaction 
 of getting Torquenie out of prison, and to consign 
 thither in his stead those who deserved it. before the 
 sad event that sent me into exile. • 
 
 "I always entertained certain vague suspicions 
 which I found it very difficult to clear up. There 
 was no doubt about Viscount de Mortr6e having 
 been frequently seen in the neighbourhood of 
 ' d'Albrays,' there was equally no doubt that now 
 and then he made his way into the park at night- 
 all." 
 
 " But was it to meet Marianne Torqueiiie or 
 someone else ? One day a lucky chance, an accident 
 if you like, put me on a sure track and showed me 
 that my suspicions were well founded." 
 
 " You are aware that every now and then the 
 Commissioners of ' Crown property ' sell by auction 
 
r04 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 in the different law courts of France the various 
 articles, in other words, the material proofs, that 
 have figured in criminal trials." 
 
 " One morning on going into the courts, I 
 happened to see the poster, setting forth the condi- 
 tions of one of those sales, and I bethought myself 
 that I might find among the flotsam and jetsam of 
 the Torquenie trial things the importance of which 
 had escaped the notice of the judges. So said, so 
 done ; I bought the whole of the articles connected 
 with the Torquenie trial, and when I got home, 
 examined them very carefully. 
 
 " And now I want you to appeal to your memory. 
 Do you remember the indictment alluding quite 
 incidentally, casually as it were, to a small blue 
 book that was found in Viscount Marcellin de 
 Mortree's trousers' pocket on the morning he was 
 murdered ? It was an odd volume of Balzac, a frag- 
 ment of his great masterpiece known under the 
 generic title, ' La Com6die Humaine.' It was ' Le 
 Lys dans la Vallee.' The idea struck me that the 
 little book might contain a note, a mark that might 
 be of use to me. I need not tell you that the mind, 
 when over-excited by the solution of a difficult pro- 
 blem, becomes very acute indeed. 
 
 " I cprefuUy turned over the leaves of the little 
 book. I found nothing, absolutely nothing. It was 
 a little book, just like any other little book, very 
 much thumbed and worn, but the margin was intact 
 and there was no note concealed within its 
 pages. 
 
 " I fell a-reading the admirable story and gradu- 
 ally yielded to the poet's charm of style. Seated by 
 the fire I must have read a long while, forgetting 
 for the time the thing uppermost in my mind. 
 
 " Still, I fancy I must have been thinking of my 
 inquiry for aU that, and the touching story of 
 Madame Mortsauf could not have utterly engrossed 
 my mind, for all of a sudden I jumped out of my 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 105 
 
 chair, as it were, as if the truth, of which I was in 
 search, had suddenly flashed upon me. 
 
 "The explanation of my sudden emotion, which 
 had the effect of an unexpected thunderclap on me, 
 is this. 
 
 " On the page I was reading I had noticed a few 
 black points, almost imperceptible to the naked eye, 
 and looking like fly-blows between the blanks of the 
 lines. These points were placed beneath a certain 
 number of letters. I bethought myself of putting 
 together some of these letters and found that they 
 made up into words. 
 
 " And now can you imagine my feelings ? That 
 book which was found in the pocket of Viscount de 
 Mortr6e was evidently the means of a secret corre- 
 spondence, probably a love correspondence. But 
 who was the young nobleman's correspondent ? I 
 collected on a sheet of paper, and in taking them in 
 the order as they stood, all the letters marked with 
 a tiny black point. After this very easy task, I got 
 the page which I am going to read to you now. 
 You will find, that to judge from the style and the 
 thoughts themselves, that letter is not exactly the 
 letter of a woman of humble condition." 
 
 Rousseau took a sheet of paper from the bundle 
 ^f documents before him and read as follows : — 
 
 " I can think of nothing or of no one but you, 
 dear friend. Your image is so indelibly stamped 
 both on mind and heart that I cannot escape from 
 it. Scarcely a moment passes but what I fancy I 
 hear the sound of your voice ; the words of love you 
 whispered to me when kneeling at my feet and in 
 such passionate tones during that beautiful evening 
 we spent beneath those magnificent trees in the 
 park constantly ring in my ears. You appreciate me 
 well enough to know that I am not a woman likely 
 to engage in a vulgar intrigue. Therefore, I want 
 you to read carefully what I am about to say to you. 
 I only ask you to judge me leniently. What you 
 
Io6 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 are about to read will drive you frantic with joy, and 
 you will not be too severe on her who loves you 
 with such ineffable tenderness. 
 
 " Marcellin, I cannot lay claim to the virtue of 
 Madame de Mortsauf. But the difference is that I 
 have no children. And if the victim of Clochegourde 
 had not been a mother, you know as well as I, that no 
 more than 1, she would have been proof against his 
 love. Therefore, may God forgive me for what I am 
 about to do. But in my inmost soul and conscience 
 I do not consider myself guilty. I was married too 
 young .to a man whom I never loved. One word of 
 affection would have saved me and would have saved 
 his honour. That word, I still begged for it as late as 
 last night as the condemned man begs for mercy — and 
 he denied it to me. He was harsh and stern, and 
 pitiless, as always. In trying to sound his heart, I 
 only heard the sound of a stone. I can no longer 
 live like this. My heart longs to love someone. I 
 know I am good looking, I feel capable of making 
 the life of the man I love and who loves me happy 
 and sweet. In the position I am there are but two 
 ways open to me : to kill myself, or to give myself 
 to you. 
 
 " During a weary night, spent in anguish, I have 
 had these two prospects before me, these two pro- 
 spects which, as it were, make up the horizon of my 
 life. Death itself has no terrors for me. But if I 
 die I shall no longer see you. 
 
 " No, the die is cast. Come this evening and my 
 faithful Marianne will tell you the way to get into 
 the house. We will make our plans to get away. 
 For get away we must. I am not one of those 
 double-faced women who can hide the lover behind 
 them while they assume before the world and their 
 husband the most virtuous airs. I want you to be 
 all my own, as I shall be j'ours. Come to me, my 
 dearly beloved, take me into your arms, that I may 
 know the joys and intoxication of love, such as your 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. I07 
 
 passionate accents pictured them to me last night. 
 Come. I love you." 
 
 When he had finished reading Monsieur Rousseau 
 sat silent for a few minutes, partly to give his tired- 
 out voice a brief respite, partly to judge the effect of 
 the letter on Armand. 
 
 The latter was simply stupefied. 
 
 " Monsieur de Mortrte the lover of the Countess 
 de Tremeillan ? " he said at last, as if awaking from 
 a dream. 
 
 Monsieur Rousseau nodded his head in token of 
 assent. After a short pause he went on — 
 
 " You are fully able to see by now what did occur, 
 are not you ? Viscount Mortree went to the appoint- 
 ment offered him by the Countess de Tremeillan, 
 The husband, who probably had his suspicions, 
 came upon them unawares. Monsieur de Mortrte 
 escaped half-dressed. He was pursued and killed 
 by Count de Tremeillan, or by one of his trusty 
 servants. But the honour of the real criminal had 
 to be shielded. Thereupon, and with deep-laid 
 cunning, the story of a love intrigue between Mar- 
 cellin de Mortree and the gamekeeper's wife was 
 trumped up. As you may see by this letter, Marianne 
 must often have guarded the lovers against surprise. 
 The Viscount de Mortree had been noticed several 
 times in the lodge. That was more than sufficient 
 for a foundation of the base charge against this 
 unfortunate Torquenie. 
 
 " And now I want you to pay attention to the 
 events subsequent to the assassination of Viscount 
 de Mortr6e. Marianne falls ill, stricken down with 
 a violent attack of fever. It is certain that during 
 that night she witnessed some terrible scene, and 
 the affair took such hold on her mind that fever was 
 the result. 
 
 " She is there while her lodge is overhauled by 
 the authorities, but so ill as to be unconscious of 
 what is going on. In her delirium she beholds the 
 
I08 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 magistrates enter the place, interrogate her husband. 
 But she has not the slightest notion of what it 
 means, does not understand a word of what is said. 
 
 " Still, there is the chance of her recovery. The 
 moment may come when she will be able to say 
 what she has seen during that terrible night of the 
 25th April. She may lift her voice m defencs of her 
 husband who is unjustly accused ; she may point 
 out the real assassin of Viscount de Mortree. She 
 must be got rid of at all costs, and what is more, 
 there is no time to lose. Before she recovers her 
 reason, Marianne Torquenie dies by poison. 
 
 " And now can you guess who had an interest in 
 her death and who ordered that abominable crime ? 
 
 " Two days after the murder of Marcellin de 
 Mortree ; several days before the death of Marianne 
 Torquenie, the Countess de Tremeillan starts for 
 Nice, where for two years she is undermined with 
 grief and despair, until death puts an end to her 
 anguish. 
 
 " Shut up in a convent she remains in utter 
 ignorance of the doings of the outer world. The 
 faint rumour of a criminal trial at Rennes, at the 
 other end of France as it were, does not even reach 
 her ; she will never know that an innocent man has 
 been convicted instead of her guilty husband. 
 
 " She dies amongst strangers, abandoned by every- 
 one, after having given birth to a daughter, Made- 
 moiselle de Tremeillan, your intended wife. 
 
 " And now, Monsieur, I have told you, in as few 
 words as possible, the drama you wished to know. 
 And now. Monsieur, comes the question of reinstating 
 Jean Torqueni6 in the eyes of the law and the world. 
 To do this you must prove to a court of justice that 
 Count de Tremeillan was the murderer of Marcellin 
 de Mortree, and that he ordered Marianne Torqueni6 
 to be killed. 
 
 " Here are the documents ; it now remains with 
 you to do what you call your duty." 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. IO9 
 
 CHAPTER XVII, 
 
 For the first few hours after his interview with 
 Monsieur Rousseau, Armand felt dazed and unable 
 to connect his thoughts — in fact, struck by a blow so 
 violent as to have stunned him. For many minutes 
 at a time he sat, as if petrified, at his writing-table, 
 staring at the terrible bundle of documents — that 
 " first brief," as it v/ere, for which he had been so 
 anxious in his youthful dreams of ambition, and 
 which, now that he had it, it plunged him into such 
 a terrible state of fear. 
 
 He kept asking himself what he was to do, what 
 resolution he was to take. To pursue the reinstate- 
 ment of Jean Torqueni6 was tantamount to the im- 
 peachment of Marguerite's father. And to drag the 
 latter into a court of justice meant the relinquishing of 
 the young girl who was to be his in a few days, who 
 was to be the chosen companion, dreamt of, wished 
 for during many a year, the girl in whom were 
 centred all his hopes, all his affections. 
 
 On the other hand, to give up the defence of that 
 poor, unfortunate man meant to commit an infamous 
 thing, to make himself the accomplice of a crime 
 perpetrated twenty years previously by the black- 
 browed master of " d'Albrays," to burden his life 
 with everlasting remorse. He did not for a single 
 moment entertain the idea that Monsieur Rousseau 
 might have been mistaken, that the Countess de 
 Tremeillan was as innocent as Marianne. He did 
 not attempt to discuss the proofs. The evidence 
 to him was conclusive. That letter settled the ques- 
 tion, and cast a searching light on that mystery of 
 the distant past. 
 
no A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 Count de Tremeillan was nothing better than a 
 base assassin. He was, moreover, a coward, who to 
 shirk the responsibility of his crime had allowed an 
 innocent man to be convicted, and with infamous 
 cunning encompassed the ruin of that unfortunate 
 Torquenie. 
 
 Therefore, two means only were open to Armand ; 
 to give up Marguerite, to ruin his own life, to break 
 the young girl's sweet and affectionate heart, or to 
 disgrace himself by abandoning to his wretched fate 
 the man whom he had sworn to defend. The 
 struggle was a long and painful one ; so painful as 
 to cause the tears to run down the young fellow's 
 cheeks ; while the battle between love and duty 
 waged fiercely in his heart and bruised it cruelly. 
 
 At last he rose, pale and resolved. Armand 
 d'Arcay had become a different man. He was no 
 longer the gentle, careless young fellow, somewhat 
 spoilt by the affection of two women, his mother and 
 his intended wife, whose love had filled up his 
 infancy and his youth, whose dream had been of a 
 calm and happy existence bounded by the modest 
 horizon of domestic joys to which he meant to 
 confine his future. He was a man determined, 
 energetic, whose pale and inspired face stood out in 
 bold relief from his dark surroundings. 
 
 The painful accomplishment of a sublime duty 
 had, as it were, invested him with the calm halo of 
 the martyr. He had just resolved upon the sacrifice 
 of what was more to him than his life. He felt 
 conscious that after having travelled unflinchingly, 
 with a bold and firm step, the terrible road he had 
 mapped out for himself, he would not only die of 
 grief himself, but would perhaps kill the being he 
 loved more than himself. 
 
 But come what might he was determined to go to 
 the bitter end. 
 
 He kept pacing up and down the room for awhile, 
 his arm folded across his breast, his head bent low. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. Ill 
 
 He was looking for the means of proving the 
 innocence of his fortunate client, and in order to do 
 this, he beheld only one road open to him ; to compel 
 the Count de Tremeillan and those who aided him 
 to confess their crime. There was no doubt that la 
 Terreuse was among the latter. 
 
 He still clung to a last hope. The Count de 
 Tr6meillan, finding that he was suspected and about 
 to be handed over to justice, might in his despair hit 
 upon some inspiration that would save him from 
 ignominy. Be that as it might, Armand resolved to 
 act without delay. The more cruel the sacrifice, 
 the greater was his obligation to haste its accom- 
 plishment. 
 
 He was pondering all this in his mind, when 
 Baptiste came in to tell him that there was a woman 
 downstairs who wished to speak to him. 
 
 " Who is she ? " asked the young barrister. 
 
 " I do not know, Monsieur." And Baptiste made 
 a significant grimace, as on the day when he in- 
 formed his master of the visit of Jean Torquenie. 
 
 "Very well, I will be down directly," said 
 Armand. 
 
 When he got into the garden he saw a young girl 
 whose appearance struck him deeply. She was 
 wretchedly dressed in a black tattered skirt and a 
 patched shawl, which she had drawn tightly round 
 her, no doubt to conceal the absence of a bodice. The 
 pale face, the features of which were singularly 
 regular and delicate was set off by a head of frizzy, 
 touzled, black hair, like that of a gipsy. The pure 
 oval face was lighted up by a pair of magnificent, 
 flashing, black eyes, staring savagely at everything 
 around her. 
 
 " You wish to speak to me ? " asked Armand, 
 looking with astonishment at the girl. 
 
 Instead of answering she handed him a letter, 
 then quickly put back her hands under her 
 shawl. 
 
113 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 Armand opened the letter; it only contained a 
 few lines. 
 
 " Monsieur, — To reinstate the father is not enough ; 
 his child should be shielded from further misery, 
 from infamy. I met the poor creature yesterday ; 
 she was begging, and everyone recoiled from her. 
 It is your duty to assist her and to ensure her future 
 as an honest girl. — Eugene Rousseau." 
 
 Armand felt more than surprised at this brief note, 
 and it struck him that Monsieur Rousseau was 
 adopting a rather strange tone towards him. He 
 felt nettled that a man whom Rennes society has 
 ostracised, should prescribe a rule of conduct and 
 dictate his duty to him in so curt a fashion. His 
 feeling of vexation was shortlived. He came to the 
 conclusion that in spite of the rough tone, Monsieur 
 Rousseau was after all in the right. 
 
 His father and the Count de Tremeillan^the 
 madman and the criminal as the old barrister styled 
 them in his unvarnished speech — were responsible 
 for the misery and shame of this poor girl, as they 
 were responsible for the misery and disgrace of 
 Jean Torquenie. 
 
 The moment he intended to repair the wrong done 
 by these two men he should thoroughly accomplish 
 the task he had set himself. He should take Jeanne 
 Torquenie by the hand, provide for her, comfort hei 
 in her grief, and insure her future as an honest girl. 
 
 " The world has fared very badly with you, has 
 not it ? " said Armand d'Arcay, drawing nearer to 
 the girl. 
 
 The latter seemed startled, and she stared at the 
 young fellow in a kind of daze. It was the first time 
 people said a kind word to, and appeared to take an 
 interest in, her. The girl was so thoroughly over- 
 come as to be unable to answer, save by a violent 
 sob that almost choked her. All at once, and with- 
 out having spoken a word, her eyes were blinded 
 with tears, while she hid her face in her shawl. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. II3 
 
 " You shall suffer no more," said Armand gently, 
 when the poor creature's emotion had somewhat sub- 
 sided. " In this house, Mademoiselle " (and he laid 
 great stress on the last word), "you will meet with 
 nothing but kindness and comforting words. Be 
 disheartened no longer. They insult you in this 
 town because you are the daughter of a convict." 
 
 Jeanne Torqueni6 shuddered, and she gave Armand 
 one of those wild, hunted looks that hardened the 
 expression of her handsome face. 
 
 " I can assure you," Armand went on, " that your 
 father has been unjustly convicted. In a very short 
 period his innocence will be acknowledged and 
 made known publicly. And those who insult you 
 now will only pity you and care for you." 
 
 She looked at him with a kind of stupor, as if 
 she failed to grasp the meaning of his words. 
 
 "Just stay here a moment," said Armand. "I 
 shall be able to tell j'ou directly what we are going 
 to do with you." 
 
 Armand went there and then to the drawing-room, 
 .where Madame d'Arcay was sitting at needlework. 
 
 " Mother, dear," he said, coming to the point at 
 once ; " I have come to ask you to help me." 
 
 " In what, Armand, dear ? " asked Madame 
 d'Arcay, with the tranquil smile of the won>an whose 
 lines have fallen in pleasant places. 
 
 " To do an act of kindness." 
 
 " Let us hear all about it, my dear. You may 
 depend upon me, you know. What can I do ? 
 What is it ? " 
 
 "It is a poor girl who is very wretched, and 
 whom your kindness may save from a worse fate." 
 
 In a few words he told her Jeanne 'Torquenie's 
 story, but without revealing the real name of his 
 protegee, nor the powerful interest he felt in her. He 
 told her that he had undertaken to apply for the 
 revision of a sentence of a man who had been 
 wrongly convicted formerly, that the daughter of 
 
114 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 that man had. left the factory where she was employed 
 because her father's misfortune made her an object 
 of hatred and contempt. He added that the poor 
 girl was dying of want, and that, pending the new 
 trial, which was to take place shortly, it would be an 
 act of charity to take the girl in, to give her some 
 better and cleaner clothing than that she was wearing ; 
 in short, to hold out a helping hand to her so that 
 she might not be dragged to her ruin from sheer 
 despair. 
 
 Armand had no need to say much to persuade his 
 mother to convert her to his protegee's cause. Madame 
 d'Arcay was kind-hearted to a fault, readily sympathising 
 with every misfortune, and endeavouring to make every- 
 one around happy and contented. She grew quite 
 enthusiastic over her son's plans. 
 
 " There just happens to be a spare room next to that 
 of my maid in the small pavilion in front. Tell Yvonne 
 to look after the girl. She shall get her some clothes, 
 she shall make her do some needlework, and make 
 her nice and comfortable in that room. Poor child, 
 I will take care of her ; you make your mind easy, 
 Armand dear, and if she be a good girl she will be 
 comfortable enough with us until you restore her father 
 to her." 
 
 Armand went to consult Yvonne there and then ; 
 and a few hours later on, a handsome young girl, 
 wearing the black dress and twill handkerchief the 
 black silk cap and the pleated white chemisette of the 
 Breton women, was sitting at work at the window of 
 a modest but exquisitely clean room. One would 
 have scarcely recognised the poor child who a few 
 hours previously was tramping the streets of Rennes, 
 tattered, and almost barefooted, wretched, driven mad 
 with want, looking askance and vindictively at the 
 passers-by. 
 
 She herself seemed hardly to believe in the 
 realisation of her dream. Every now and then she 
 sat quite still, her work dropping in her lap, her 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. II5 
 
 eyes fixed on the narrow street on which her win- 
 dow looked. 
 
 When she entered the room but a few minutes 
 before, and found herself treated with so much 
 kindness, provided with clean linen and appropriate 
 clothing, she had felt suffocated, as it were, and the 
 tears had started to her eyes. 
 
 Jeanne Torquenie was not a common-place girl. 
 Her proud any very sensitive nature had preserved 
 her from the vulgar pitfalls to which a pretty girl, 
 struggling with want, is generally exposed. Admitted 
 into an asylum, and cast adrift at fifteen, she never 
 knew a mother's counsel, no helping hand had 
 pointed out the right path. But she was naturally 
 honest and scrupulously straightforward. The trials 
 she had undergone for a fault not committed by her, 
 the odious persecution with which society visits the 
 crimes of the parents on the children had developed 
 in her feelings of right and wrong, not to be shaken 
 by anything. The sorrows of her childhood had not 
 altogether withered her heart. She was still 
 capable of loving. And in the sweet atmosphere by 
 which she was now surrounded, she felt springing up 
 into her heart affectionatethoughts to which hitherto 
 she had "been a stranger. 
 
 Gradually a feeling of peace stole over her. After 
 so stormy and painful a childhood, she found herselt 
 all of a sudden and by a supernatural fairy spell, as it 
 were, in a heaven of rest and comfort, and the thought 
 struck her that she had not sufficiently thanked 
 those to whom the unexpected change was due. 
 
 She put her work aside and went into the garden to 
 look for someone who could take her to Madame 
 d'Arcay, whom as yet she had not seen. 
 
 In the small stable-yard she came upon Armand, 
 who was superintending the groom, getting his trap 
 ready. Daylight was waning fast, but he felt unable 
 to bear the anxiety that tortured him till next 
 morning. He was anxious to get to " d'Albrays " as 
 
Il6 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 soon as possible in order to have the interview that would 
 decide his fate with Count de T^rdmeillan. 
 
 On perceiving Jeanne, Armand came to meet her 
 half-way, asking her what she wanted. The girl told 
 him. "You'll thank my mother to-morrow morning," 
 he said. " Oh, before I forget," he added in a lower 
 tone, " don't tell her your name You will know later 
 on why I ask you to do so. Your father's name may 
 remind my mother of some painful incidents connected 
 with her life." 
 
 Jeanne fixed her large eyes on him. " My father,'' 
 she said, with some hesitation; "where is he, Monsieur? 
 Can I see him ? I would ask his pardon, for I have 
 been very unkind to him. I was not aware that he had 
 been sent to prison unjustly. I thought that he was 
 guilty, and I have suffered so much on his account that 
 I hated him. I cannot bear to think what I have done 
 to him. He took me in his arms, and I flung him off. 
 I cursed him." 
 
 " Your father will soon take up his quarters in this 
 town. In after days, perhaps you will be together, and, 
 let us hope, happy." Saying which, Armand got into 
 his trap, and in another moment drove out of the 
 yarc'. 
 
 And the young girl, who looked after him with a feel- 
 ing of emotion and gratitude, was certainly unable to 
 guess the heroism hidden beneath this calm and modest 
 appearance. . ■ 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 117 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Armand D'Arcay's horse got rapidly over the few 
 miles between Rennes and the Count de Trdmeillan's 
 estate. The faithful animal knew the road well, and 
 knew, moreover, that his master was always in a 
 hurry when he went in that direction. Still, swift 
 as had been the pace, it was almost dark when 
 Armand rolled along the shady drive leading to the 
 house. He called a servant and told him to look to 
 his horse. Then he went up the front steps, the 
 sinking at his heart growing more intense as he pro- 
 ceeded. The heroic resolution, so boldly taken in a 
 moment of excitement, seemed to him now beyond 
 human endurance. How was he to bear the sight of 
 his beloved Marguerite, and the happy and confiding 
 smile with which she would welcome him. He almost 
 wished not to see her. If he could manage to see 
 the Count by himself^ there would be, no doubt, a 
 violent, terrible scene ; but with him he felt strength 
 enough to go to the bitter end and accomplish his 
 duty. On the other hand, he would not answer for 
 himself if Marguerite, having noticed his arrival, were to 
 beguile him into a corner of the drawing-room, to con- 
 coct, as usual, happy plans for the future. He knew well 
 enough that under such conditions the stern duty he 
 had to accomplish would not be proof against his young 
 ardent affection. 
 
 When the servant opened the door of the drawing- 
 room to him, Armand stood for a moment on the thres- 
 hold, undecided, racked with terrible anguish. His legs 
 seemed to give way under him, and he felt as if he 
 would drop down senseless. 
 
 Near the window sat Count de Trdmeillan, an open 
 
Il8 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 newspaper in his lap, and lost in his usual, sad 
 meditations. A hurried glance through the room 
 revived Armand's courage. Count de Tremeillan 
 was alone. Armand mustered up all his energy and 
 walked firmly up to him. The latter did not seem 
 to have heard him, and it was only when Armand 
 was within a few paces of his chair, that he raised 
 his head and looked at him with a listless air. 
 
 "Tell Mademoiselle that Monsieur d'Arcay is 
 here," he said, beckoning to the servant. And with- 
 out as much as shaking hands with the man who 
 within a few days was to be his daughter's husband 
 he relapsed into his lethargic state. 
 
 Armand held up his hand for the servant to stop. 
 " There is no necessity to disturb Mademoiselle," he 
 said. " I must even ask you not to tell her that I 
 am here. I wish to speak to you alone, Monsieur," 
 he added, turning to the Count. 
 
 The Count looked at the young fellow in surprise ; 
 but Armand pretended not to notice it, and sat down 
 facing him. 
 
 " Monsieur," he began, " the matter that brings 
 me here to-day is a very serious one, and I will tell 
 you in a very few words what it is. I have been 
 instructed to apply for a new trial by a man who was 
 convicted twenty years ago, and who maintains that 
 he is innocent. You know the man ; you gave him a 
 character at the trial. I must ask you to consult 
 your recollections without a moment's delay, and to 
 tell me whether you really think there was a mis- 
 take on the part of his judges." 
 
 " What was the individual's name ? " asked the 
 Count, listlessly examining his fingertips. 
 
 " Jean Torquenie." 
 
 Armand had sat down with his back to the light, 
 so as to get the last rays of the sinking sun full 
 on the Count's face. He looked at him intently 
 ^vhile saying these two words. 
 
 The Count did not budge. Not a muscle of his 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. II9 
 
 face moved. "Oh yes," he said, "I remember. It 
 is a - very old story indeed, my dear d'Arcay, and 
 assuredly the poor devil was guilty. There never was 
 the slightest doubt in our mind about it. But I was 
 very sorry for all that, for the man was an excellent 
 servant." 
 
 " Then you really do believe in the man's 
 guilt?" 
 
 " No doubt I do. Besides, he admitted it himself. 
 Now that I come to think of it, it was your father 
 himself who wrung the confession from him. And I 
 need scarcely tell you that your father was an adept in 
 his profession. What a strange idea of yours to stir 
 all those things of bygone days. I recommend you to 
 let that sad matter rest. The cause is lost before- 
 hand." 
 
 " I do not think so," replied Armand in a grave 
 tone of voice. " Torquenie was discharged from 
 prison a few days ago, and he is determined to clear 
 his name from the ignominy of this sentence, which 
 he maintains was an unjust one. He is terribly 
 energetic in his protests. He insists that he has 
 proofs of his innocence, that up till now he was reluc- 
 tant to make them public out of respect for a family 
 occupying an honoured position in these parts, but 
 his suffering has soured his character, spoilt it, and he 
 refuses to abide any longer by the sentence that 
 disgraced him. He wants to be heard and tell all he 
 knows." 
 
 Armand stopped for a moment, then went on in an 
 indifferent tone, "Moreover, I am not particularly 
 anxious to take up the affair, and if you really think 
 there is no chance of a favourable issue, I will tell the 
 man to go. and see one of my colleagues. He can tell 
 another barrister whatever he likes." 
 
 The Count fixed his cold and piercing glance on 
 Armand's face, as if trying to read his inmost thoughts. 
 That, at any rate, was the young barrister's interpretation 
 ■jf the swift, furtive look. 
 
120 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 Count de Tremeillan remained silent for a moment. 
 " Look here," he said at last ; " before you take any 
 further steps, you had better send Jean Torquenid to 
 me. I will question him, and turn him inside out, and 
 am sure that after that he will not dare to maintain his 
 innocence, because I happen to know certain details of 
 the affair which " 
 
 The Count stopped short and relapsed into his 
 silence. 
 
 But Armand took up the parable, as it were : — 
 
 " I also. Monsieur, happen to know certain details 
 which are so very precise as to make Torquenid's 
 innocence as plain as daylight to me. It was said that 
 he killed Viscount de Mortr^e because the latter was 
 the lover of his wife. I know that this is false. The 
 woman whose lover M. de Mortrde was was not Marianne 
 Torquenie. 
 
 The Count started from his chair as if moved by a 
 violent, galvanic shock. Then he paced up and down 
 the room for some time, swaying to and fro and 
 evidently under the influence of nervous excitement. 
 At last he returned to where Armand sat, and looking 
 him steadfastly in the face, said, in a voice he vainly 
 endeavoured to control, " And what of that ? What 
 more do you know ? Speak out. Who was the 
 mistress of the Viscount de Mortree ? " 
 
 Armand hesitated for a moment, then he got up 
 and without wincing before his terrible look, firmly 
 said — 
 
 " It was the Countess de Trdmeillan, Monsieur." 
 
 Count de Trdmeillan received the violent blow with- 
 out a muscle moving in his face. He only turned 
 slightly pale ; a lightning-like flash came into his eyes, 
 that was all. 
 
 " I will finish, Monsieur, and say all I have got to 
 say," remarked Armand without giving him time to 
 speak. " I have in my possession a letter from the 
 Countess to Monsieur de Mortrde. This letter has 
 laid the whole truth bare to me, and it has at the 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 121 
 
 same time been the flash of lightning whereby I 
 read the innocence of that unfortunate man, con- 
 victed of crime he did not commit. After that I 
 began to cast about for the probable author of the 
 Viscount's murder, of Marianne Torquenie's death 
 by poison. And the evidence pointed clearly to 
 one and the same man, which man is no one else but 
 you. Monsieur de Tremeillan." 
 
 " Oh, indeed, you came to that conclusion. Mon- 
 sieur," said Count de Tr6meillan, in a voice big 
 with anger, ready to burst forth like a thunder- 
 clap. 
 
 " Are you still of opinion that I had better give 
 up this case, that I had better confide the docu- 
 ments relating to it to another barrister?" asked 
 Armand. 
 
 The Count's face turned somewhat more livid 
 still. He hung his head, he kept his eyes fixed on 
 the floor, as if in search of something whereon to fix 
 them. At last he appeared to have made a des- 
 perate resolve. He drew himself up to his full 
 height and resumed the proud and supercilious 
 attitude habitual to him. 
 
 " And if it were so, Monsieur ? " he said. " Sup- 
 pose the Viscount de Mortree inflicted the most 
 cruel injury upon me one man can inflict upon 
 another, who would dare blame me for my re- 
 venge ? " 
 
 " But in order to do so with impunity, Monsieur, 
 you have had a poor woman assassinated, an inno- 
 cent man thrown into prison " 
 
 Count de Tremeillan shuddered and turned away 
 his head. He dropped into his armchair in the 
 sombre and dreamy attitude Armand had so fre- 
 quently noticed, and it gave the young barrister the 
 clue to the savage moods that constantly darkened 
 the Count's character. He guessed that this old 
 man was ever racked with terrible remorse. _ 
 
 " I ask ypu once more," said the Count in a curt 
 
 K 
 
122 A VILLAOIS PKltbT. 
 
 and jerky tone, " to send Torqueni^ to me. I will 
 settle the business with him. If he wants money 
 he shall have it. . . . That letter, Monsieur, that 
 letter, who gave it to you ? Have you got it with 
 you ? Give it to me." Then, after a slight pause, 
 and with a violent effort, he went on, "Yes, you were 
 right ; the Countess de Trdmeillan was unfaithful, and 
 I punished her lover. But you understand well 
 enough, do not you, that at the very moment you 
 are going to marry my daughter it is your duty to 
 destroy every trace of that sad story. Give me that 
 letter." 
 
 "You evidently do not understand me. Monsieur," 
 said Armand d'Arcay in a grave tone. "Jean Tor- 
 quenid does not ask for money; he wants his name 
 cleared from the stigma attaching to it; he wants 
 the ignominy of convict prison wiped off his front, 
 he wants his honour, of which you have robbed 
 him. I have promised to help him with all my 
 strength, and I will keep my promise. I will not be 
 your accomplice. Monsieur. If necessary, I will be 
 your accuser. True, I worship your daughter; 
 true, the dream of my life has been to make her my 
 wife, and I swear that I should prefer death to giving 
 her up. But there is within me a voice that speaks 
 louder even than my love . . . and that is the voice 
 of my conscience. Monsieur. I share to a certain 
 extent the responsibility of this crime with you. As 
 you reminded me just now, it was my poor father 
 who conducted the preliminary investigations in the 
 Torquenid affair; and who, consumed already with 
 fever, his brain excited with the disease that was to 
 kill him eventually, displayed a zeal such as to 
 compel the unfortunate man to confess himself 
 guilty of a crime he had not committed in order to 
 escape from a cruel persecution. After that you 
 will understand the duty I have to perform. And, I 
 swear to you, I will not fail to do so. Then, rising 
 from his chair, he added, " I am going, Monsieur, 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 1 23 
 
 and give you till to-morrow morning to reflect upon the 
 course you intend to pursue." He left the room without 
 any attempt on the Count's part to detain him. A 
 few minutes later he was spinning along the carriage- 
 drive. 
 
 Left to himself, the Count bent his head and 
 seemed to listen to the sound of wheels which was 
 soon lost in the distance. Then he angrily rose 
 from his chair ; the feelings he had tried to control 
 during his interview with Armand d'Arcay suddenly 
 found vent. He paced up and down the drawing- 
 room with a kind of savage energy, swaying to and 
 fro, his lips livid with frenzy, and jerking forth half- 
 finished sentences. For the time being he became 
 what he had been in his younger days, the creature 
 half-mad with excitement, who had inflicted such 
 cruel sufferings upon the unhappy Countess de 
 Tr^meillan. 
 
 For the last twenty years, ever since the crimes 
 planned and carried out with such cold-bloadedness, the 
 character of the Count de Tr^meillan had changed. 
 The impetuousness, the raving fits of anger had ceased. 
 They seemed to have become condensed into a kind 
 of melancholy lethargy. He lived, as it were, within 
 himself, the head weighed down by poignant sorrow : 
 his heart constantly gnawed perhaps by the canker of 
 remorse. 
 
 And now this remorse assumed a shape, became 
 endowed with a soul, and uprose to accuse him 
 in a loud voice. All of a sudden the ashes of the 
 past were kindled anew and the shadows became 
 lighted up by a lurid flame. The dead had not 
 buried their dead, and that which he believed to have 
 sunk into oblivion for evermore reappeared and con- 
 fronted him threateningly. It seemed to him that he 
 had been asleep for twenty years and that he was 
 now awakened on the morrow of the crime, face to face 
 with the law, who demanded an account of what he had 
 done. 
 
124 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 And after the fit of terror which made him retreat 
 to a corner of the drawing-room, huddled together, 
 prostrate, unable to articulate a syllable, there came a 
 sudden access of revolt ; he roared like a wounded lion, 
 he would not surrender ; nay, he repented having let 
 Armand go, not having strangled the secret in his throat. 
 He raved liked an angry madman. What that Tor- 
 quenie, that scum of the earth, dared come out of his 
 prison and accuse him ? 
 
 Were not these folk merely born to pay for their lords 
 and masters. 
 
 His mind, fed upon all the excesses of the feudal ages, 
 brought back the times when the vilein did not make so 
 many objections to yield to his lord his wife, his honour, 
 his life. 
 
 And with the impotent fury of a child he grew 
 indignant with the times, with events, with the men 
 who had dared to change so perfect a condition of 
 things. 
 
 All at once, as if a sudden idea had struck light into 
 his mind, as if salvation had appeared to him on the 
 very brink of the abyss, he flung himself on the bell and 
 rang it violently. 
 
 " Tell Mademoiselle de Trdmeillan that I wish to see 
 her," he shouted to the servant, who came at the 
 summons. And dropping once more into the arm-chair, 
 he endeavoured to control the boiling, seething passion 
 within. 
 
 When Marguerite, handsome and tranquil as ever, 
 appeared on the threshold of the drawing-room, Count 
 de Trdmeillan had relapsed into the sad, dreamy atti- 
 tude habitual with him. Nothing appeared to have 
 occurred to him. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIESTr I25 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 It was still very early -when, on the following 
 morning, Baptiste, looking rather- upset, came to 
 tell his master that someone wished co see him. 
 Armand was in his room, looking for the twentieth 
 time, perhaps, through the documents of the terrible 
 case he had undertaken. 
 
 At the mute but questioning glance of the young 
 barrister, Baptiste seemed to hesitate, but at last, as 
 if unable to keep the secret confided to him any 
 longer, he said in a low voice, " It is Mademoiselle 
 de Tremeillan." 
 
 " Marguerite ! " exclaimed Armand, turning very 
 pale, and rushing to the door of the back staircase, 
 on which his room opened. 
 
 A lady closely veiled entered the room quickly. 
 She was evidently much exhausted, for she dropped 
 into the first chair within her reach. 
 
 " You may go, Baptiste," said Armand to the 
 old servant, " and be careful not to say a word to 
 anyone." 
 
 When left to themselves Armand flung himself on 
 his knees before Margu6rite de Tremeillan, and 
 took both her hands, which were cold as ice, in his. 
 
 His heart was wrung with anguish ; he did not 
 dare guess the truth, and still he knew why Mar- 
 guerite, pale and trembling, came to him at such an 
 hour. He felt that the Count de Tremeillan had 
 wanted to play his last trump, and that he had been 
 base enough to enlist in his defence this pure, chaste 
 soul, whom he ought never to have dragged into 
 this. 
 
 Margu6rite made an effort to master the emotion 
 
126 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 that shook her whole frame. She flung her arms 
 round the neck of Armand, who was still kneeling 
 by her side, and looking at the young fellow with 
 eyes bright with feverish excitement and suffused 
 with tears, she said in a broken voice, " Why did 
 not you send for me last night ? " 
 
 " Did you know I came to the house ? " he asked, 
 turning pale with apprehension. 
 
 " Yes, I know everything." 
 
 " What," heexclaimed, " your fathertold you " 
 
 " Everything," repeated Margu6rite with a sup- 
 pressed sob. 
 
 " But it can't be," said Armand, revolting at the 
 idea; " he cannot have told you." 
 
 "I tell you that he told me everything; he has 
 been absolutely pitiless. My dearest recollections, 
 my most cherished affections, my modesty as a young 
 girl — he trampled everything under foot. You may 
 well pride yourself upon what you have done. You 
 have killed me." 
 
 And she dropped her head on her breast with a 
 gesture of harrowing despair, while ■ her sobs, 
 suppressed for a long while found vent, and the tears 
 welled forth again as they had done during the whole 
 of the night. 
 
 Armand stood like petrified, dumb-stricken, finding 
 no word of comfort for her. 
 
 " Great Heaven, great Heaven," moaned the 
 poor girl, hiding her face in her clenched hands ; " I 
 was too happy, and it could not last. And it is you, 
 you, who strike the blow. What evil spirit prompted 
 you to do it ? Why did you consent to become my 
 father's accuser ? No, you have never cared for 
 me. " My life has been divided between two affec- 
 tions," she went on in a heartrending tone, that for 
 my mother and that for you. Both these affections have 
 been trampled upon. My mother was not the saint- 
 like woman I believed her to be, and you, you have 
 sacrificed me, like the merest stranger, to a chance 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 127 
 
 beggar, who came to implore your aid. What has 
 happened to you ; I fail to understand it, and I can 
 make out but one thing, that you do not love me, that 
 you never did love me." 
 
 Marguerite was so terribly excited that it seemed 
 impossible to soothe her, to allay her despair. 
 Nevertheless, Armand wished to make an effort to 
 defend himself, but how could he make the poor child 
 listen to reason, carried away as she was by the pas- 
 sion that wrung her very soul. Armand took her in 
 his arms, and with kind and loving words endeavoured 
 to soothe her violent grief He perceived but too 
 well that this could only be done by extenuating the 
 conduct of the mother, of whom Marguerite cherished 
 so pious a recollection, which Count da Trdmeillan 
 had ignobly bespattered. Armand, furthermore, 
 understood the full bearing of the bold attempt on 
 the Count's part. To defend himself, to silence 
 the accusing voice of the past, he had told Mar- 
 guerite everything. He had told her of her mother's 
 offence, of the punishment he had meted out to her 
 partner in guilt. Then, slurring over the innocent 
 man who had been convicted in his stead, he had 
 added that Armand was bent upon having a new 
 trial, and upon becoming his accuser. He, the Count, 
 knew the love, the respect of Marguerite for that poor 
 mother whom she had never known. He had had 
 no difficulty in showing her that, if that trial ever 
 took place, the memory of the Countess de Trdmeillan 
 would be publicly disgraced, that the offence, so care- 
 fully hushed up by him for twenty long years, would 
 be brought to light, that the first and foremost thing 
 to do was to avoid a like scandal, and that in order 
 to do this, Armand had to be appealed to there and 
 then for the surrender of the documents he had in his 
 possession. 
 
 After these cruel revelations. Marguerite had spent 
 a terrible night. She failed to understand the 
 sudden madness that' had taken hold of her intended 
 
128 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 husband. She even went so far as to surmise that 
 he no longer cared for her, and that he had stirred 
 up this scandal in order to break his engagement. 
 For hours the poor child was racked with anguish, 
 the scalding tears being only interrupted by violent 
 sobs that almost broke her heart. 
 
 At the first faint streak of daylight she dressed 
 hurriedly, and, accompanied by a servant, drove to 
 Rennes to beseech Armand to desist. 
 
 " Listen to me, dearest," said Armand, drawing 
 her lovingly towards him. " Let me justify myself, 
 let me plead for those two affections of your heart, 
 your mother and your intended husband." Then 
 he led her gently to a chair and knelt at her 
 feet. 
 
 His mother had told him all the particulars of 
 Count de Tr6meillan's marriage, he knew that that 
 union had been a martyrdom to the poor Countess. 
 These particulars, of which Marguerite was utterly 
 ignorant, and which, until then, he had carefully 
 withheld from her, he now told her. 
 
 " I have often heard you say, darling," he began, 
 " that you would sooner die than be married to a 
 man you could not love. Can you imagine what 
 your poor mother must have suffered, when mar- 
 ried against her wish the moment she left the con- 
 vent-school. It was a family arrangement, and she 
 was not even consulted. Your mother was of a 
 sweet and loving disposition, the soul of honesty. 
 Even under the conditions in which she married she 
 would have become attached to her husband if the 
 latter had shown her some affection and kindness. 
 But he was hard and cold, indifferent to any and 
 everything that generally moves the soul of man. 
 Apart from his political views, which his education has 
 invested with a kind of apparent fanaticism, there is 
 not a single chord of his heart responding to the 
 human touch. Moreover, and also owing to the fatal 
 prejudices of bygone ages, he has taught himself to 
 
A VILLAGfi PRIEST*. I29 
 
 look upon woman as merely an inferior being 
 intended to play an altogether passive part, and 
 not having the right to look or to go beyond the 
 narrow circle of domestic pursuits. 
 
 "A woman is bound to love once in her life. 
 Unless her marriage provides her with the romance 
 dreamt of in her girlhood she is the most wretched, 
 the most unhappy of creatures, and she is bound to 
 look for it elsewhere. It is not your poor mother 
 who was to blame. Marguerite ; it is not her whom 
 we should accuse, but rather those absurd social 
 customs which make of marriage a kind of business 
 contract in which affection plays no part. The 
 real guilty ones, when such a misfortune does occur 
 are the parents who bartered their child for a title 
 or for money. 
 
 " Your mother was too loyal to accept such a dis- 
 graceful bargain. She claimed the right to break 
 the bonds that had become a martyrdom. Ah, if 
 you had been there she would have suffered that 
 martyrdom to the bitter end. She has said as- 
 much in a letter which I have seen. But she was 
 alone in the world, alone with that hard and brutal 
 man whom she hated. And she met in her path 
 with a deep-seated affection, with an ardent devotioi;, 
 She was not proof against it. She wanted to go, 
 like the honest woman she was, and have nothing 
 more in common with the man who was her hus- 
 band in the eyes of the law, but whom, before God, 
 she denied. Her only husband was Marcellin do 
 Mortree. She threw herself in his arms, imploring 
 him to deliver her from an existence that became 
 more hateful to her each moment. Where is the 
 woman who would dare cast the first stone at her. 
 Where is the man who would not pity and absolve 
 her from the bottom of his heart ? " 
 
 As Armand went on. Marguerite had gradually 
 raised her head and her tears had ceased to flow. 
 She sat looking at her betrothed in a kind of ecstasy 
 
130 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 eagerly drinking in the words which moved her to 
 the very soul. 
 
 " You are kind," she said after a moment's silence ; 
 "you try to soothe the terrible pain he gave me." 
 
 Then after another interval, " Now be kind to 
 the end, and give up the fatal idea of involving my 
 father in this trial." 
 
 " You know that an innocent man has been con- 
 victed in his stead, that he spent twenty years in 
 prison, that he loudly clamours to have his innocence 
 publicly proved, and that he is fully justified in thus 
 agitating." 
 
 " Ah, you do not care for me," repeated poor 
 Marguerite in despair. " If you cared for me would 
 you fling my future, my life, my love in the scale 
 agamst the interests of a stranger whom the merest 
 accident brought to your door ? " 
 
 " I see that Monsieur de Tr6meillan has not told 
 you everything," said Armand d'Arcay in a grave 
 tone of voice. Then he told her of the part his own 
 father had enacted in the drama ; he pointed out to 
 her that he would be the basest of men and un- 
 worthy of her affection if he refused his aid to the 
 poor wretch who had come to ask him for it. 
 
 " Besides," he went on, " cannot you see that it 
 is in your father's own interest that I must 
 undertake this case ? To offer money to Torquenie 
 is absolutely useless. He will not relinquish the 
 one idea that has haunted him these twenty years. 
 He wants his name cleared from the stigma attached 
 to it, he wants to be reinstated in public opinion, he 
 insists upon a new trial. If I refuse to assist him 
 he will consult another lawyer. That one will 
 assuredly not have the same motives in conducting 
 the case cautiously, and, as a matter of course, 
 there will be a public scandal. You mother's name, 
 which you respect, which you idolise, will be dragged 
 into court. Her false step, extenuated by circum- 
 stances, will be represented as the vulgar fall of a 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. I3I 
 
 dishonest woman ; she will be dragged through the 
 mud, held up to ignominy." 
 
 " Stop ! stop, Armand, say no more. My pool 
 mother ! " And Marguerite, choking with tears, 
 dropped her head heavily on her intended husband's 
 shoulder. 
 
 " You see, therefore, that we must avoid such a 
 scandal at any cost. And in order to this he who is 
 most guilty must sacrifice himself." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " Listen. Your father must go away, must leave 
 France. I have been thinking this over all night, 
 and I believe that my plan is the only feasible 
 one. Therefore let him go. During his absence 
 the preliminary investigations in the Torquenie 
 affair will take place. We will manage to proceed 
 carefully and very little will leak out. Your father's- 
 accomplice at that time must have been that strange 
 woman we saw one night, you remember don't you ; 
 I mean la Terreuse. The creature is devoted to 
 him, body and soul. The brunt of the charge will 
 ■probably recoil on her;_I mean the assassination of 
 Marianne. Your father will only have to answer 
 for the death of Viscount Marcellin, and the extenua- 
 tion of the deed will be found in his wrath at the 
 injury done to him. We will find a barrister who 
 will conduct his defence in that sense, and who will 
 keep your mother's name as much as possible out of 
 the question. 
 
 " Monsieur de Tremeillan will perhaps be con- 
 victed, but his sentence will be a light one, and his 
 flight will obviate the consequences of it. Make him 
 understand all this. Marguerite ; tell him that instead 
 of laying the blame at my door, he ought to thank 
 his stars that the case fell into my hands. Tell him 
 above all to go away without a moment's delay." 
 
 Marguerite de Tremeillan remained silent for a 
 moment. Her position was such a strange one, she 
 had suffered so much during that terrible night that 
 
132 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 she felt completely undone and incapable of making 
 an effort to collect her thoughts. 
 
 " I must be going," she said, rising from her chair. 
 " Give me to-day to consider all this. I have not 
 got an idea in my head ; my eyes burn ; I can 
 scarcely hold myself up." And in fact, she posi- 
 tively reeled when endeavouring to rise, and Armand 
 had to support her. 
 
 " Marguerite, my beloved Marguerite," he said ; 
 " God tries our affection for one another very severely. 
 We were too happy. Our existence went by too 
 sweetly, too peacefully. Do not you think 1 also 
 feel my heart terribly wrung at the thought that you 
 may cease to care for him whom fate compels him to 
 be the accuser of your father ? Nevertheless, I have 
 gone on. However cruel, however painful my duty, 
 I have performed it to the bitter end. But I want 
 you to know, dearest, tliat, whatever happens, I will 
 not cease to worship you as I do, and that I shall 
 feel proud to give you my name." 
 
 "Ah, you love me, you love me," said Mar- 
 guerite, nestling in Armand's arms. 
 
 " Tell me again and again. Yes, you are right, it 
 is fate that is crushing us with this heavy burden. 
 Forgive me for having doubted you. I felt how 
 much you loved me just now when you spoke to me 
 of my poor mother. 
 
 " Therefore, Armand dear," she went on after a 
 slight pause and drawing a long sigh ; " therefore, 
 Armand dear, do your duty. I depend upon your 
 love for me to spare my father as much as possible. 
 You know how proud he is. A trial like that might 
 kill him." 
 
 " Make your mind easy on that score, dearest. 
 And now, darling, I now beseech you to faithfully 
 accomplish the part I have traced out for you. Try 
 to induce the Count to leave France as soon as 
 possible. You know why I ask you to do this. 
 We have everything to fear from his violent temper." 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. I3; 
 
 It was broad daylight by now. Armand rang tke 
 bell and told his faithful Baptiste to take Made- 
 moiselle de Tremeillan by the servant's staircase, 
 so that, if Madame d'Arcay happened to be up, 
 there should be no fear of her meeting the young girl. 
 
 Armand had the satisfaction of seeing the young 
 girl depart in a much more tranquil and strong frame 
 of mind than she had come. She promised to 
 despatch a servant in the course of the day to let 
 him know the decision of Count de Tremeillan. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 There are some happy natures who go through 
 life blindfolded, without least suspicion of the 
 cruel dramas, the mysterious and terrible events 
 going on under their very noses. They show misfor- 
 tunes a kind of dull, passive courage, against which 
 the breakers of the most heartrending grief dash 
 in vain. They crave for peace, contentment, and 
 quiet joy, and the moment they have attained these, 
 they, as it were, shut themselves up, entrench them 
 selves in them, and instinctively avert their eyes 
 from any and everything that might disturb them. 
 
 Such was Madame d'Arcay ; and it was not the 
 least original feature of this strange drama to see 
 this mother, kind, loving, devoted to a fault, pursue 
 her tranquil life amidst the harrowing events in 
 which the happiness, nay, the very life of her son 
 were at stake. She was simply leading the existence 
 of the well-to-do provincial lady of position, super- 
 intending the minutest details of her home, so that 
 her dear Armand, when he married, might find 
 everything in apple-pie order. Looking neither tc 
 the right, nor the left, she went straight b efore her 
 
on that road, blind to the lines care was stamping 
 on Armand's brow ; for ever smiling and content ; 
 occupied solely with the great event impending, 
 which she expected to be fraught with every happi- 
 ness for her son. 
 
 This " Mark Tapleyism " invested her with a 
 strength of character that had shown itself proof 
 against certain trials which undoubtedly would have 
 shattered the health and spirits of any other woman. 
 For many years she had suffered the most cruel 
 torments that can befall a woman. She had wit- 
 nessed the protracted agony, the living death of the 
 man she loved. But during that mental and moral 
 torture she had borne up by virtue of an astonishing 
 courage, of an invincible hope that remained deaf to, 
 uninfluenced by, the most formal verdicts of science, 
 the evidence of facts. 
 
 Nothing on earth would have induced Armand to 
 trouble this profound peace. Before his mother he 
 strained every nerve to preserve his ordinary looks 
 and demeanour, to hide his mental preoccupations, 
 though he succeeded but indifferently in concealing 
 his grief. 
 
 As it happened there was no need of dissimula- 
 tion. With the optimism natural to her, Madame 
 d'Arcay attributed the frequent absent-mindedness 
 of her son to all but the right cause. She could not 
 possibly surmise the truth. Seeing him more pre- 
 occupied, more taciturn than usual, she thought him 
 to be lost in love-dreams, she su; posed him to be 
 utterly engrossed by the excitement of his coming 
 marriage. 
 
 During breakfast, after the unexpected visit from 
 Marguerite de Tremeillan, Armand'was particularly 
 silent and thoughtful. His mother, comfortably 
 ensconced in her tapestry arm-chair, cast a smiling 
 glance at him now and again, she seemed to be 
 inwardl}' amused at his youthful love-dreams, and 
 was careful not to break in upon them. When they 
 
A Vl^L.A'^a i-Kii. 
 
 had nearly finished, Baptiste handed a letter to 
 Armand. It had arrived that very moment and 
 was apparently urgent. 
 
 Madame d'Arcay cast a sidelong glance at it 
 while Armand opened it and recognised Marguerite's 
 handwriting. Another smile played on the kind 
 lady's lips, whose face scarcely showed any signs of 
 age. The young people ev^ry now and again wrote 
 to one another like this when they were not to meet 
 during the day. Madame d'Arcay flattered herself 
 that she knew pretty well the contents of the letter, 
 and when Armand left the table she looked after 
 him with a silent little chuckle, while sipping her 
 steaming hot coffee. 
 
 As soon as the door was closed upon him, Armand 
 read the letter he had just received for the second 
 time. 
 
 " I have just seen my father," it ran. " He re- 
 fuses to go, and declares that he will stand the 
 chance of a trial and defend himself to the bitter 
 end. All my efforts to dissuade him were met with 
 an inflexible and savage determination. He was 
 more harsh and unkind than ever. When he spoke 
 of my mother his eyes absolutely flashed, and he 
 looked at me furiously, as if I were partly to blame 
 for the whole of the thing. I feel desperate, and 
 you, Armand, must save me, and shield my mother's 
 memory. This trial must be prevented at all costs. 
 See Jean Torquenie and offer him money. Try to 
 prevail upon him to leave the country. I will part 
 with everything I possess, but, for Heaven's sake, 
 do not allow that dear memory to be dragged 
 through the mire. Answer this, try to set ray 
 mind at rest a little bit. You have no idea what 
 I am suffering, dearest, and you, at any rate, will 
 not add to my grief. Spare me, and remember that 
 I am innocent of all these crimes. Have some pity 
 on her who loves you so dearly. — Marguerite." 
 
 As he read on the tears came to Armand's eyes, 
 
136 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 and his heart was wrung with anguish. His emotion, 
 in fact, became almost too great to be borne, for he 
 could scarcely credit the contents of the letter, 
 which he read over and over again, noticing mean- 
 while the unsteady, feverish handwriting. 
 
 Still, there it was, and in order to screen himself, 
 the Count de Tremeillan was determined to lay all 
 the blame on a poor woman, who had fallen, through 
 weakness no doubt, but much more so from despair 
 and through his fault. Was it ignoble cowardice 
 that dictated this conduct, or the craving for a still 
 greater revenge on the poor, unfortunate creature 
 that had offended him ? 
 
 Having gained a very clear insight into Count de 
 Tremeillan's character by now, Armand felt inclined 
 to abide by the latter supposition. This country 
 gentleman, whose refinement was scarcely skin-deep, 
 had many affinities with the mere peasant. In spite 
 of his assuming towards the latter the conduct of the 
 despotic king towards his subjects, in spite of his 
 supercilious contempt, in spite of his high and 
 mighty aristocratic pretensions, it was easy enough 
 by scratching the magnificent veneer to find the 
 coarse clay of the country lout. He was as brutally 
 violent, as covertly vindictive, as deeply cunning as 
 the latter ; in addition to having the latter's ferocious 
 selfishness and the latter's heart of flint. 
 
 After Armand's unexpected visit he had taken in 
 his critical situation at a glance, and immediately 
 made up his mind as to the course to pursue in order 
 to get the best of this unlooked-for adversary. 
 
 He certainly never expected to be confronted by 
 Armand. Whenever the memoryof the past haunted 
 him, whenever the dread of his crime took pos- 
 session of him, he was far from suspecting that he, 
 who should tear off his mask one day, would be the 
 dreamy, sentimental, easy-going young fellow whose 
 mind seemed utterly engrossed with his youthful 
 love-passion. 
 
A Village priest. 137 
 
 The deep cunning of the Count de Tremeillan, 
 which had shown itself already once when he had 
 contrived to have an innocent man convicted in his 
 stead, had shown itself a second time in choosing 
 Armand d' A.rcay for his son-in-law. 
 
 As Armand had told Marguerite, his fortune was 
 far from being equal to Monsieur de Tremeillan's. 
 N.or could he offer any compensation in this respect 
 to the Count's pride of birth by the prestige of an 
 ancient name. No, it was neither his position, nor 
 his name, nor even the great love he bore Margue- 
 rite that had facilitated his suit with the Count. 
 The latter simply felt that consideration, not unmixd 
 with fear, towards judges and barristers which is 
 generally shared by French country-people, especially 
 if their conscience does not happen to be a very clear 
 one.. 
 
 He nursed the secret hope that, if ever the author- 
 ities took it into their heads to rake up the past, 
 his son-in-law would take up his cudgels and defend 
 him. Hence, the reader may imagine his disappoint- 
 ment, his fury at finding himself threatened by the 
 very man whoso aid he had hoped to secure by the 
 sacrifice of his prejudices and his pride. Neverthe- 
 less, he contrived to control himself, and to dissimu- 
 late his anger. Instead of brutally daring his accuser 
 to do his worst, instead of opposiiig a violent denial 
 to the charge which might have goaded the young 
 barrister into collecting his proofs and to drive 
 him into a corner, he had parried the blow in 
 a much bolder fashion. At the risk of breaking 
 the poor girl's heart, he had placed Marguerite 
 between Armand and himself. He felt perfectly 
 secure that in order to " get at him " Armand 
 would never consent to harm the girl he idolised. 
 He knew well enough that when the repu- 
 tation of her mother was at stake Marguerite would 
 never allow Armand to bring the matter into court. 
 
 That is why he had overwhelmed the poor child 
 
138 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 with those horrible revelations, why he had not 
 scrupled to sully that young heart, to tear asunder 
 the veil painted in sweet and poetic colours in which 
 Marguerite loved to enwrap the vision of the Countess 
 de Tr6meillan. 
 
 He screened himself behind the filial tenderness 
 of Marguerite, behind the passionate love of 
 Armand. 
 
 This conduct was, no doubt, the reverse of chival- 
 rous, but it was very prudent and very cunning. 
 He made absolutely certain that, after Marguerite's 
 visit, Armand would give up all idea of this absurd 
 affair, and that this duty which he invoked so 
 loudly would not be proof against his love. Conse- 
 quently, he was beside himself with fury when at 
 her return Marguerite told him that Armand, far 
 from intending to give up the affair, was more than 
 ever determined to defend Jean Torquenie, and to 
 unmask the real criminal. Nevertheless, he strained 
 every nerve to moderate his anger, and to control 
 the violence of his character, which at that moment 
 might have led him to lay hands brutally on the 
 poor child who stood pale and trembling before him. 
 
 But he persisted in his resolution. He refused to 
 throw up the sponge and to fly without fighting, as 
 Armand demanded. His obstinate, stubborn peasant 
 nature hugged the idea that Armand would never 
 dare push things to the bitter end, and that Mar- 
 guerite, in order to save her mother's reputation, 
 would use her power over her intended husband to 
 make him give up the aGair. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. I39 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 After having read the young girl's letter over and 
 over again, Armand went into the garden and sat 
 himself down under a tree, trying to collect his 
 thoughts and to find a means to solve the hopeless 
 situation. 
 
 He felt utterly crushed with anxiety and emotion, 
 and asked himself whether he would have sufficient 
 courage to pursue the task he had set himself to the 
 end. The duty he had assumed with such noble 
 courage seemed at present a load too heavy to be 
 borne. 
 
 There was no denying it, the load utterly crushed 
 him. His heart revolted against the injustice oi 
 fate which flung the burden of those crimes of the 
 past full upon innocent people. He even went so 
 far as to think of flying with Marguerite, to pass 
 his life with her in some remote spot, whither those 
 voices of the past could not penetrate^ and trouble 
 his happiness. 
 
 While pondering all this he held his head with 
 both hands, his elbow resting on his knee in an 
 attitude of profound despondency. When he looked 
 up at last he noticed a large shadow on the gravel 
 before him. Then he drew himself up. Jean Tor- 
 quenie was standing before him, hat in hand, looking 
 clean and neat. He stood waiting respectfully for 
 the young man to awaken from his apparently deep 
 reverie. 
 
 The unexpected appearance of the discharged 
 convict tallied so thoroughly with Armand's present 
 thoughts, that the latter uttered a cry and suddenly 
 
140 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 started to his feet, as if the spectre called forth by 
 his imagination had uprisen before him. 
 
 " What brings you here ? " he asked, in a kind of 
 terrified voice. 
 
 This somewhat abrupt welcome seemed in no way 
 to distress Jean Torqueni6. 
 
 " I have been told, Monsieur," he said, drawing 
 closer to Armand, " that I owe my leave to stay in 
 Rennes to your influence. It is another kindness 
 on your part, for which I thank you from the bottom 
 of my heart." 
 
 And seeing that Armand did not answer, he went 
 on. " And now, Monsieur, I have only to ask one 
 more favour. Tell me, if I may expect my trial to 
 come on shortly ? Have you done anything in my 
 behalf ? Have you found the real criminal ? Oh ! 
 Monsieur, since I had the good fortune to meet 
 with you ten days ago at Evreux I have been ex- 
 pecting a letter from you every minute. I sent you 
 my address. Did not you get my letter ? " 
 
 " Yes, I got your letter," replied Armand who, not- 
 withstanding his own grief, could not help pitying the 
 poor fellow. " But you will easily understand that 
 a few days do not suffice to find a criminal of twenty 
 years' standing. Give me time to look about me." 
 
 Then, wishing to give the wretched man a slight 
 gleam of happiness and to divert his mind from the 
 fixed thought that tortured it, he beckoned to the 
 gardener who was close to them and whispered a few 
 words to him. The latter ran immediately towards 
 a small pavilion which did duty as the servants' 
 quarters. 
 
 In a few moments the door of the building was 
 opened and a young girl, plainly dressed, appeared 
 on the threshold. For a little while she stood 
 perfectly still and hesitating, then she mustered up 
 courage and advanced quickly towards the clump 
 of trees, amidst which Armand and Jean Torquenie 
 were standing. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 141 
 
 Her step was so light, and she took such care to 
 keep close to the grass, lest she should make the gravel 
 creak beneath her feet, that she got close to Jean 
 Torquenie without the latter, wholly wrapt up in his own 
 thoughts, suspecting her of being there. She still seemed 
 to hesitate, but, encouraged by a smile from Armand, 
 she came forward and said in a soft tone, " Father, 
 father." 
 
 Jean Torquenie staggered as if he had been struck 
 full in the chest. He swung rather than turned round, 
 and a convulsive sob broke from his lips. "Jeanne, 
 Jeanne, my child ! " he gasped, as the girl threw herself 
 into his arms, and he covered her face and neck with 
 frantic kisses. 
 
 " Forgive me, forgive me, poor father ! " sighed 
 Jeanne, the tears streaming down her cheeks. " I 
 grieved you very much, I did not know, I was so 
 wretched myself." 
 
 " Heaven be thanked ! " said Jean Torquenie, 
 laughing and crying at the same time. " Heaven 
 be thanked for this joy ! I never thought I should 
 see you again. I knew you were poor and unhappy, 
 and now you are happy and looking well, and I hold 
 you in my arms, you no longer spurn me. Ah, 
 Monsieur, it is to you I owe this also. Great 
 heavens ! this happiness is almost too much for me, 
 after having suffered as I have. I feel that I shall 
 choke." 
 
 And Torquenid dropped on the seat occupied by 
 Armand a few moments previously. He had turned 
 ghastly pale with emotion — in fact, he looked as if 
 choking. Jeanne was obliged to unfasten his hand- 
 kerchief and to unbutton his coat to bring him to. 
 Then he took the girl, who had sat down by his side, in 
 his arms, strained her passionately to his breast, and 
 put his lips on her forehead in a long, long, loving kiss. 
 For a long while he sat staring into space, and as if 
 in a dream. The recollection of his twenty years of 
 shame and anguish had no doubt come back to his 
 
142 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 mind, he felt unable to realize the small gleam of joy 
 that had befallen him. 
 
 Armand thought it better to leave the sorely tried 
 father and daughter to savour their happiness by 
 themselves. He himself felt powerfully affected. 
 But before he went away he told Torquenid that he 
 had another bit of good news for him, that Maltre 
 Rousseau had been back in Rennes for some time, 
 and at the same time he gave him the old barrister's 
 address. 
 
 " I will go and see him, Monsieur," said Torqueni6, 
 for he has been very kind to me in years gone by, 
 but I'll have no other counsel but you. " Ah, Mon- 
 sieur, " he added, " I am crying, but I am crying 
 for joy. How shall I tell you all I feel, how shall I 
 express my gratitude to you ! My little Jeanne. . ." 
 He looked long and lovingly at his daughter, then he 
 concluded, " If her poor mother were not dead I 
 might fancy I was sitting next to her. The likeness 
 is so striking." 
 
 Armand returned to the house and went to speak 
 to his mother. Under these terrible circumstances 
 he wished to be nearer Marguerite ; until the painful 
 crisis was passed, until the curtain had fallen upon 
 the drama in which he was mixed up, he wished to 
 be close to the scene of action, within reach of the 
 events, which henceforth might succeed one another 
 rapidly. Moreover, he felt the necessity of being 
 near the Count de Tremeillan, whose every step he 
 wanted to watch. 
 
 He asked his mother to take up her quarters for a 
 few days at Mesnil. 
 
 " You are not near enough to your liking ? " said 
 the old lady with her tranquil smile. " Very well, 
 we will start to-morrow. Too late to-morrow ? " she 
 added quickly, noticing a movement of impatience on 
 Armand's part. " Very well, we will go this very day." 
 
 " Oh, mother dear, how kind you are !" exclaimed 
 Armand, throwing his arms round her neck. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 1 43 
 
 There was no need of many preparations, and two 
 hours later they were at Mesnil. 
 
 Armand had told Jeanne Torqueni^ to come and 
 join them when they liked, and promised them quarters 
 in the house. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The moment he was in the tiny room at Mesnil that 
 had been the silent witness of so many lovers' dreams, 
 Armand wrote a line to Marguerite to tell her of his 
 arrival. 
 
 He asked her at the same time to see him that 
 evening in order to settle the course to pursue under 
 the painful circumstances. They were to meet at a 
 grand cedar tree on one of the lawns at " d'Albrays," 
 around which there ran a seat where they had spent 
 many a warm summer evening. Shortly before night- 
 fall Jean Torqueni6 arrived at Mesnil accompanied 
 by Jeanne. The moment he had crossed the gates 
 he left the girl in the park and asked to be taken to 
 Armand. 
 
 The poor fellow seemed greatly affected, very agitated. 
 •' Ah, Monsieur," he exclaimed, the moment he caught 
 sight of Armand, " I know everything, Monsieur 
 Rousseau has told me. I know by now the sacrifice you 
 are imposing upon yourself by taking up my case. But 
 I will not accept it." 
 
 " Would you consent not to ask for a new trial ? " 
 asked Armand, whose strength forsook him for a 
 moment at the gladsome idea that there might be an 
 end of his torture. 
 
 " Give up the idea of proving my innocence," ex- 
 claimed Torquenie excitedly. "No, Monsieur, I will 
 not do that; for my daughter's sake I must not do 
 
144 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 SO. But I wish another barrister to take up the case. 
 You are innocent of all this, Monsieur, and it is nei- 
 ther right nor just that you should suffer on my 
 account." 
 
 " You have suffered because of my father," said 
 Armand, in a grave tone. He had recovered all his 
 energy and felt ashamed, as of an act of cowardice, 
 of the gladsome impulse of the moment before. 
 " God is just, my friend ; and we are to bow down 
 to his will. As for myself, I will be guided by Him 
 to the last ; I have pledged you my oath to reinstate 
 you in the world's opmion a;id I will keep my oath. 
 Besides, it is better, even for the sake of those who 
 are very dear to me, that the case should remain in 
 my hands. 
 
 " And now that you know everything," Armand 
 went on, turning to Torquenie, " sit down here and 
 let us talk the matter over once more. Perhaps you 
 will be able to give me some useful and accurate 
 information. 
 
 " First of all," said Armand, after having beckoned 
 Torquenie to a chair close beside him, "Jid you ever 
 notice the intimacy which must have existed between 
 Viscount de Mortree and Madame de Tremeillan ? " 
 
 " In fact, Monsieur, for the last hour or so, since 
 Monsieur Rousseau told me everything, I have been 
 trying to collect my thoughts and to remember. But 
 twenty years have gone by, and, as you may imagine, 
 some things must have slipped my memory. Still, I 
 recollect that Madame de Tremeillan was at the 
 lodge when I brought Viscount de Mortr6e thither 
 after his fall off his horse. She often came to see my 
 poor Marianne, of whom she was very fond." 
 
 " Do you think she knew the Viscount before that ?" 
 
 " I do not think so, Monsieur ; for I remember that, 
 when I made the Viscount de Mortre6 sit down by 
 the fireplace, she asked Marianne his name." 
 
 " Then you think that they saw one another for 
 the first time that day ? " 
 
A VILLAGE PEIEST. I45 
 
 " Yes, Monsieur. The day before Viscount de 
 Mortree left I came upon Madame de Tremeillan 
 near the lodge. She was talking with my wife in the 
 garden. When she saw me she got on her horse 
 and rode away." 
 
 " I can see through the whole of the affair now," 
 Jean Torquenie went on after a little while. " My 
 poor Marianne was wrong to mix herself up with the 
 Countess's love-affairs. They saw one another most 
 olten at our place. The house stands in a lonely 
 spot, as you know, and I was scarcely ever at home. 
 She only smiled when I objected to the Viscount 
 coming so often to the lodge. I can also account for 
 that sudden illness of hers, for the violent fever that 
 struck her down on the day of Viscount de Mortree's 
 death. She was probably close at hand when Count 
 de Tr6meillan took them unawares, and the sudden 
 fright was too much for her. 
 
 " But no one could have suspected all this," re- 
 marked Jean Torqueni6 after a long pause ; " and 
 when I cudgelled my brain as to the murderer of 
 Monsieur de Mortree, I had not the slightest inkling 
 of these matters. My poor Marianne kept them back 
 from me, and God has punished her. If she could 
 have only said a single word before she died ! But 
 she did not know even that suspicion had fallen 
 upon me. She was delirious when the authorities 
 searched our house and she died carrying the secret 
 with her to the grave. 
 
 " Do not you think that la Terreuse must have 
 played an important part in all this ? " 
 
 " I am thoroughly convinced she did. Monsieur. 
 She was always pothering about our place. Now 
 that I come to think of it, it was she who must 
 have taken from the little cupboard the carabine 
 which I had not used for the last three years, and 
 which was found after the crime. It is she, yes, it 
 is she, I am certain of it by now, who poisoned 
 Marianne." 
 
146 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 Arrnand strode several times up and down the 
 room, apparently lost in deep thought. 
 
 " Did not you tell me," he said at last, " that your 
 daughter Jeanne is marvellously like her mother ? " 
 
 "It is her living likeness, Monsieur, and it is the 
 likeness that struck me the first time I saw her in 
 one of the little eyots at Rennes. In fact, it was the 
 likeness that made me recognise her on. the spot." 
 
 Armand lapsed into thought again. 
 
 " Baptiste will show you yours and your daughter's 
 rooms. Let me impress upon you the necessity of 
 both keeping out of the way as much as possible 
 until the trial is over." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Night had fairly set in when Armand crossed the 
 park of Mesnil, and got into that of " d'Albrays " I-y 
 the gap in the wall of which Marguerite had told 
 him the first time they met. He knew the pas- 
 sage well, for he had often made use of it when 
 in a hurry to get to Marguerite and too impatient to 
 go by the high road. 
 
 It was a dark night and he felt certain of being 
 able to get to Margu6rite without being noticed. It 
 being mild besides, he might count upon having a 
 long chat with his intended. 
 
 When he had left the park behind him he made 
 straight for the great lawn, at the far end of which 
 the cold, forbidding walls of "d'Albrays" were 
 dimly visible. The huge and conical outline of the 
 great cedar tree beneath which he had appointed to 
 meet Marguerite loomed indistmctly against the 
 sombre sky and he walked rapidly towards it. But 
 at the moment he got to it, he perceived a huge 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST I47 
 
 shadow detaching itself from it, as it were, and meeting 
 him half-way. 
 
 Armand stopped, surprised and overcome with 
 emotion. The shadow had stopped likewise, and stood 
 motionless before him. 
 
 "You did not expect me, did you?" said a harsh 
 voice which Armand immediately recognised as that of 
 the Count de Trdmeillan. 
 
 "Monsieur de Tr^meillan," murmured Armand, 
 whose heart was throbbing audibly. 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur de Tremeillan. You litde thought 
 that I should keep the appointment, Monsieur," the 
 Count went on in a curt voice, which anger had almost 
 changed to a hiss. "Monsieur, from this day forward 
 everything is at an end between you and Mademoiselle 
 de Trdmeillan. From this day forth you will not set 
 eyes on her again. If you make the slightest attempt 
 to speak to her, if you attempt to get into the park or 
 into the house, I will shoot you down like a common 
 thief." 
 
 " I know .that the idea of a murder does not 
 frighten you. Monsieur," replied Armand, who had 
 thoroughly recovered his presence of mind. " But 
 allow me to tell you that your threats do not 
 frighten me in the least. Mademoiselle de Tre- 
 meillan is my affianced wife before God ; I swear to 
 you that she shall be my wife before the world, and 
 that the obstacles you may place between us will 
 only have the effect of increasing our mutual 
 affection." 
 
 " My authority over my daughter is nothing to you, I 
 suppose ? " yelled the Count, coming closer to Armand 
 and assuming a threatening attitude. 
 
 " The law fixes a limit to the authority of the parents 
 over their children," replied Armand in a perfectly calm 
 but somewhat ironical tone, " and this limit will soon be 
 reached." 
 
 " The law, the law," repeated the Count de Tre- 
 meillan, exasperated, as it were, by the sound of 
 
148 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 the word. " I have never known any other law than 
 my own will, do you understand ? I belong to those 
 who command, and do not know how to obey — 
 except the king. I should like to know for whom 
 you take me. Do you think I am blind and mad ? 
 Do you think I have my eyes shut to what has 
 been going on around me for the last few years ? 
 If I have chosen to have them shut, if I have 
 allowed you to aspire to the hand of Mademoiselle 
 de Tremeillan, if I gave you the hope of being 
 united to her, though such a marriage might almost 
 be considered as a mesalliance, if 1 have done all 
 this, it is because I took you to be a man of honour 
 who would not suffer all those lawyers to molest me 
 for a lot of old and forgotten stories. But instead 
 of defending mc, as I hoped you would, as it was 
 your duty to do, it is you who became my accuser. 
 And you think that while you are casting ignominy on 
 my name, I'll allow you to come and go as of old, to 
 see Marguerite or to write to her. No, no. Mon- 
 sieur, all this is at an end. Henceforth we are 
 strangers, enemies, if you like it better. Ho, ho, 
 you think you will marry Marguerite in spite of me ? 
 I pledge you my oath that it shall not be, if I had to 
 send her to the other end of the world, if I had 
 to . . ." He did not finish the sentence, he was 
 almost mad with anger. 
 
 " I have warned you," he concluded, "and you 
 had better think it over. You will have to give up 
 Marguerite or that ridiculous law-suit." 
 
 " I shall give up neither the one nor the other," 
 said Armand, who had not been slow to perceive 
 what the Count was driving at, with his threats. 
 " Mademoiselle de Tremeillan will be my wife, and 
 Jean Torquenie will be reinstated in public opinion," 
 he went on calmly, but very firmly. " You may put 
 any, and as many obstacles as you like in our way, I 
 will see her for all that. You may intercept my letters 
 as you intercepted the one I wrote to her to-night ; 
 
A Village priest. 149 
 
 she shall know that my love and my troth are as firm as 
 ever. You may send her to the other end of the world, 
 I will be able to get to her." 
 
 And, without giving him time to retort, Armand 
 abruptly turned his heel upon the Count, after this 
 bold defiance to come between him and the girl he 
 loved. 
 
 Perhaps if the darkness had not been so dense 
 the Count might have prevented Armand's going, 
 might have tried to obtain by violence what his 
 threats had failed to obtain. But this black night 
 made him absolutely powerless. Armand only heard 
 the suppressed cries of the old man and his furious 
 imprecations, which gradually died away in the 
 distance. 
 
 When he got back to Mesnil he felt crushed with 
 sorrow. The energy he had shown gradually subsided 
 and he found himself confronted once more with the 
 painful reality. He found himself parted from Mar- 
 guerite ; he foresaw the suffering the poor child would 
 have to undergo in the seclusion to which the Count 
 was evidently prepared to condemn her ; he knew that 
 he would be pitiless, the man who not once during his 
 life had shown her the affection which every father, 
 however harsh and stern, shows now and then to his 
 child. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 War had been declared, and the struggle had 
 begun ; hence the only thing to be done was to push 
 things energetically, and to finish promptly this affair, 
 in which so many great and dear interests were at 
 stake. 
 
150 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 Armand immediately started his inquiry with re- 
 gard to those facts of the past upon which the revela- 
 tions of Monsieur Rousseau had already cast so vivid 
 a light. He recalled to mind a few words, that 
 had been dropped by the Cure of Bonnieres one 
 evening in the drawing-room of " d'Albrays." The 
 words had not struck him at the time, and he had 
 paid no heed to them. He did not for a moment 
 suspect then that they could apply in any way to 
 some one connected with him. Butnow they recurred 
 to him with tenfold force. He remembered that the 
 Cure had said that in the most tranquil and ap- 
 parently best behaved parts there occurred now and 
 then unpunished crimes and hidden dramas the 
 revelation of which would make people's hair stand 
 on end. Early next morning Armand got quickly 
 over the mile and a half between Mesnil and Bon- 
 nieres, and rang at the door of the manse. 
 
 " The Vicar is in the garden," said the old house- 
 keeper who answered his summons. At the same 
 time she opened a door at the end of the passage 
 which led to a garden bright with flowers, trees, 
 and wall fruit. Armand crossed the threshold and 
 peered about him for several minutes, but he could 
 not see the Vicar anywhere. 
 
 The sole living creature, besides himself, was an 
 individual in a blue blouse squatting on his haunches, 
 his head bent forward and perfectly motionless, near 
 the trelliswork on the wall. 
 
 " Halloh ! I say, my good man," shouted Armand, 
 " have you seen Monsieur Dubois anywhere? " 
 
 The man in the blouse, apparently with a great 
 effort, rose from his stooping position and turned his 
 face to the visitor. 
 
 " Monsieur Dubois! " exclaimed Armand, greatly 
 surprised. 
 
 " It's you. Monsieur d'Arcay," said the Vicar, 
 pushing the brim of his straw hat, which shielded his 
 placid features, off his forehea !. "Howearlyyouare!" 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. I5I 
 
 '* 1 beg your pardon, Monsieur le Cur6," said 
 Armand, rather confused. " I had no idea it was 
 you." 
 
 " Of course you had not," said the Vicar, in a 
 cheerful tone of voice. " You only saw my back and 
 could not very well know me by that." 
 
 He quickly rubbed his hands against one another 
 to get rid of the mould that was sticking to them, 
 and gave Armand a cordial grip of welcome. 
 
 "It is getting hot in the sun," said the Vicar; 
 " we'll be better in this little arbour." Saying 
 which he preceded the young barrister to a corner 
 of the garden where the jasmine and clematis 
 intertwined their branches and made a fragrant 
 nook. He made Armand sit next to him on a 
 wooden seat, took off his spectacles and put them 
 carefully in a case, then he slowly wiped the 
 perspiration off his forehead, and placed his strong, 
 muscular hand on the young fellow's knee. 
 
 "It is very nice of you to come and see me like 
 this," he said in his frank and cheerful voice. " I 
 do not look much like a priest, do I ? " he went on, 
 pointing to his blouse. "But my flowers don't mind 
 it a bit, and if I had to dig Mid to prune in my 
 cassock I should be obliged to give it up. By-and- 
 by, when you have rested a bit, I will show you my 
 peaches and strawberries. They are marvels ; there 
 is a small corner over there, just in the sun, that 
 produces monsters. It looks as if one were in the 
 land of Canaan. But I give myself a great deal of 
 trouble. The slugs and the moles are enough to 
 drive one crazy. I was just preparing a trap when 
 you came in." . . . The Vicar took out a large 
 chequered pocket handkerchief and blew his nose like 
 a trumpet ; then he went on : " And how are all 
 your people ? — your dear mother. Count de Tre- 
 meillan, and Mademoiselle Marguerite ? It is an 
 age since I was at ' d'Albrays.' I suppose the 
 preparations and the triumphal arches are going on 
 
152 A VILLAGE fRIEST. 
 
 apace. It is fixed for the end of this month, the 
 happy day, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Yes. . . . Still, it may, perhaps, be put off 
 for a little while," said Armand. 
 
 "Put off? And why?" 
 
 " Monsieur le Cur6," said Armand, pretending not 
 to have heard the question, "you have been in these 
 parts for a great many years, have not you ? " 
 
 " Thirty years, my son ; thirty years last month. 
 Look here, do you see that big pear tree ; well, I 
 planted it the very day I came to the manse. It has 
 grown since, and become very strong. It is just the 
 reverse of what has happened to me," he added with 
 a smile. 
 
 " Of course you have been a visitor at ' d'Albrays ' 
 these many years ? " 
 
 " I have known the Count for more than twenty- 
 five years. I have always been made very welcome 
 at his house." 
 
 " You knew the deceased Countess also ? " 
 
 Armand fancied that there was a slight quiver 
 about the eyelids of the venerable priest. But it 
 must have been very slight, because the Vicar 
 answered almost immediately and in his calm and 
 smiling way : 
 
 " Of course I did." 
 
 " She was, it appears, a saintlike woman?" 
 
 " She was very kind and very charitable. " 
 
 " I have been told that the Count did not make 
 her very happy ? " 
 
 " The Count was somewhat rough in his ways and 
 she on the contrary was very sensitive and refined. 
 Still, it seemed to me that they were happy enough." 
 
 The Vicar of Bonnieres was evidently at a loss as 
 to the drift of Armand's questions. Nevertheless 
 he stood on his guard instinctively and refused to 
 give himself away. Armand determined to play a 
 bold stroke. 
 
 " Monsieur le Cure," he said, " if you were on a 
 
A Village priest. 153 
 
 friendly footing with the Count at that time, and if 
 you knew all that happened at ' d'Albrays,' you 
 must remember a certain Jean Torqueni6 who at 
 that period was Count de Tr6meillan's gamekeeper." 
 
 " Why do you wish to know ? " said the vicar, 
 somewhat confused. 
 
 " Monsieur le Cur6," said Armand, instead of 
 replying to the question, " has it not always been 
 your firm opinion that Torquenie was innocent ? " 
 
 The vicar seemed very uncomfortable. He took 
 his spectacles from their case and rubbed them 
 a long while without saying a word. His hands 
 shook. 
 
 " Really, my dear Monsieur d'Arcay, I don't know 
 what you are driving at," he said at last. 
 
 " I am driving at this, Monsieur le Curd," said 
 Armand, somewhat sharply : " Jean Torquenie has 
 been discharged from prison ; he came to see me and 
 swore to me that he was unjustly convicted. He 
 has begged of me to take up his case. I refused at 
 first. I knew that this case had been primarily 
 entrusted to my father, and that the accused 
 had confessed to his crime. Hence, the man's 
 guilt seemed to me beyond doubt. Since then 
 important revelations and positive proofs have 
 shown me that I was mistaken, that the poor wretch 
 has been the victim, in fact, of an error of the law, 
 and, furthermore — the thought is a very horrible, 
 but, nevertheless, a true one — I have come to the 
 conclusion that my father was no longer in his right 
 mind when he interrogated the prisoner and wrung 
 his avowal from him with a kind of morbid frenzy. 
 I am, moreover, certain that the real murderer of 
 Viscount de Mortree was the Comte de Tremeillan. 
 That is what I have found out. Monsieur le Cur6. 
 And seeing that this poor Torquenie's troubles were 
 mainly due to my father, I shall not leave him to his 
 cruel fate. I will stand by him and take the 
 necessary steps to have him reinstated in public 
 
 M 
 
154 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 Opinion. I, myself, will defend his case in court if 
 needs be. It is my duty, which I will not shirk even 
 though it should break my heart." 
 
 And in as few words as possible, almost in one 
 breath, Armand told the old priest what had hap- 
 pened between him and the Count de Tr^meillan, 
 his agony at the thought that the Count would 
 wreak his vengeance on Marguerite. He who most 
 likely knew all the particulars of the affair, he 
 begged of him to give him the information that 
 would enable him (Armand) to determine the part 
 of each in that great crime, the reparation for which 
 he was pursuing. He also begged him to see the 
 Count, and to dissuade him from basing his defence 
 on a cruel indictment of the Countess.' ^^'hen 
 Armand began speaking the old priest had been 
 terror-struck, but as the young barrister went on his 
 listener had manifested a growing interest, and at 
 last, when he insisted upon doing his duty and dwelt 
 upon his own suffering, the Vicar could scarcely 
 conceal his deep emotion. i 
 
 When Armand finished, the priest took both his 
 hands and wrung them fervently, but he turned his 
 head lest the young fellow should perceive the tears 
 that dimmed his glasses. Then, with a powerful 
 effort to control himself, he said, in a grave tone: "I 
 know nothing of all this, my son." 
 
 " But it is impossible," said Armand, very excited. 
 " You must have received some communications. 
 Are not you Count de Tr^meillan's confessor ? " 
 
 " I tell you that I know nothing," repeated the old 
 priest, raising his voice. 
 
 " The other evening at ' d'Albrays ' you dropped 
 a sentence which struck me, and which I kept in my 
 mind. You alluded to unknown crimes, to dramas 
 the existence of which, in our peaceful and pious 
 neighbourhood none would suspect. Were not 
 you thinking at that moment of the murder of the 
 Viscount de Mortr6e, of the death of Marianne 
 
A VILtAGE PRIEST*. »55 
 
 Torquenie by poison, of that abominable crime 
 committed by Count de Tremeillan, who sent an 
 innocent man to prison instead of admitting his own 
 misdeed ? " 
 
 " I repeat to you once more, I know nothing — 
 nothing — nothing. And I beseech you, my son, to 
 question me no further." 
 
 " I believe you, Monsieur le Cure," said Armand, 
 submitting to this formal refusal to speak. " In 
 fact, I cannot suppose that, if you Ijad known of the 
 real author of this crime, you could have resisted 
 your desire — your duty — to hand him over to justice." 
 
 " We hand over no one, my son. The sinners 
 that come to us are assured that our lips will remain 
 closed for ever on the things they confide to us. We 
 show them the true road to salvation and repentance. 
 If they refuse to follow it, we leave them to God's 
 mercy ; but we do r.ot appeal to the justice of men." 
 
 The old priest spoke the words in a tone of con- 
 viction that made a deep impression on Armand. 
 
 " I understand, Monsieur le Cure," he said, rising. 
 " You will excuse my having insisted. I will only 
 ask you for one more favour. Pray that I may have 
 the strength to accomplish my painful duty to the 
 end." 
 
 " I will do this gladly, my noble and brave 
 boy," said the priest, clasping Armand's hands in his. 
 " You are performing a good and generous act. God 
 will bless you as his old priest blesses you at this 
 moment. I pity and I admire you." 
 
 For a moment they remained silent. The Vicar 
 of Bonnieres seemed to be thinking of something. 
 A sharp struggle was evidently going on within. 
 But he came to a decision at last. 
 
 "Wait a moment," he said, "I will be back 
 directly. I have not jjeen able to give you what you 
 came for. Still, your journey shall not be fruitless. 
 What I am going to hand you will, I fancy, be oi 
 great importance to you." 
 
156 A VILLAGE PRIEST, 
 
 The old priest went into the house while Armand 
 waited anxiously for the new revelation promised him 
 in such mysterious terms. 
 
 At last the Vicar returned. He had a small blue 
 velvet case in his hand. " This case contains a por- 
 trait," he said, slightly embarrassed. " It is the 
 portrait of Viscount Marcellin de Mortr6e and was 
 sent to me by someone who died far away from here, 
 who suffered much, and whom God has no doubt 
 pardoned. Look at this miniature carefully and 
 then you will understand why I give it to you." 
 
 Armand opened the case. He had scarcely cast 
 his eyes on the portrait when he uttered a cry of 
 surprise. " These are Marguerite's features," he 
 exclaimed. " Marguerite is the child of the Viscount 
 de Mortree." 
 
 The priest bent his head in token of mute assent. 
 
 " I thank you," said Armand with great en thusiasm ; 
 " I thank you for your kindness to m.e. Nothing 
 shall stop me now. This man is a stranger to us ; 
 he was not worthy of being the father of such an 
 angel." 
 
 " You should not be too hard on him, though," 
 said the Vicar. " Perhaps he is less guilty than you 
 suspect." 
 
 " What do you mean, Monsieur le Cure ? Pray 
 go on, tell me all you know." 
 
 " I repeat to you, 1 know nothing," replied the 
 priest firmly. " I know absolutely nothing." 
 
 They crossed the garden without another word. 
 When they got to the door of the manse the priest 
 stopped. 
 
 " I am going to ' d'Albrays ' to-morrow. Have 
 you no message for Mademoiselle de Tremeillan ? " 
 
 The words were said in such a sweet and gentle 
 way, they showed so much concern on the Vicar's 
 part that Armand felt deeply affected by the delicate 
 offer. 
 
 " How good you are. Monsieur le Cur6," he said, 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 157 
 
 •* and how well you understand me ! Tell her, tell 
 her that I adore her. Tell her that whatever 
 happens she may trust in my love, in my devotion 
 . . . tell her ..." 
 
 " Gently, gently, my son," interrupted the priest, 
 smiling, " remember there are certain things that a 
 priest cannot say. But I'll do my best. Goodbye, 
 goodbye, and God be with you." 
 
 On his road back to Mesnil, Armand felt that the 
 visit had done him good. He stopped at least a 
 score of times to look at the miniature given him by 
 the vicar of Bonnieres. 
 
 He understood by now the strange coldness of the 
 Count towards Marguerite. It was evident that Mon- 
 sieur de Tremeillan hated the poor child, and if up 
 to this time he had made every eifort to hide his real 
 feelings, he would no longer disguise them under the 
 present circumstances. Armand felt afraid to think 
 of his dear Marguerite's sufferings in the prison 
 where the Count held her shut up. He knew that 
 they had everything to fear from the violence and 
 anger of that pitiless old man. 
 
 And the anguish he suffered at the thought made 
 him more determined than ever to put an end as 
 quickly as possible to the strange situation fate had 
 lorced upon him. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Armand's way back lay past "d'Albrays," and the 
 thought struck him to go as far as the lodge, which 
 was near the gates, and to question once more la 
 Terreuse. 
 
 The woman, doubtless, knew all the particulars of 
 the drama that had been enacted in the place twenty 
 
158 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 years before, and in which she h^d certainly played 
 an active part. , 
 
 Truly, her savage disposition and the real or 
 simulated state of her mind were likely to render all 
 attempts at questioning her fruitless. Armand's 
 experience in that respect of but a few days 
 previously, inspired him with serious misgivings. 
 Nevertheless, he made up his mind to try once 
 more. 
 
 The tiny dwelling was absolutely closed on ever^ 
 side ; but a thin thread of smoke from one of the 
 chimneys showed that there was someone inside. 
 Armand knocked at the door, but his summons 
 remained unanswered. 
 
 Armand waited a few moments, and knocking once 
 more, lilted the latch at the same time. The door 
 swung back, and the young fellow entered the room 
 which was almost dark, all the shuj^ters being closed. 
 The only light came from a pane of smoke-stained 
 glass over the door. 
 
 When his eyes got accustomed to the darkness, 
 he noticed a black, almost shapeless figure huddled 
 up near the fireplace, in which two logs were 
 smouldering away. He came to the conclusion that 
 it was la Terreuse's. 
 
 He let a little more lighl into the room by opening 
 the door. A sunbeam fell athwart the floor and cut 
 the darkness with a golden ray, in which the grey 
 motes bobbed up and down. The room itself was 
 very poorly furnished. Over the mantelpiece was a 
 large old-fashioned regulation rifle, a goatskin-knap- 
 sack, and a cockade, originally white, bu^: now almosl 
 black with dust and grime. 
 
 "Will you shut the door, you tiresome imp?" 
 growled Terreuse in her husky voice, and without 
 looking up. She "vas under the impression that i1 
 was the young peasant lad whom she had taken to 
 live with her to run her errands, and perhaps also 
 to shield her from the terror which solitude and 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. - I59 
 
 the stay in that dwelling exercised on her troubled 
 mind. 
 
 Armand advanced a few steps and planted himself 
 in front of her with the light full upon him. 
 
 La Terreuse, with bent head and the hood of her 
 cloak drawn almost over her eyes, was telling her 
 beads on a coarse rosary she held between her bent 
 and twisted fingers. . She slowly raised her head, 
 and gave Armand a sidelong glance. 
 
 " Oh, it's you again," she said gruffly. " What 
 do you want with me ? " 
 
 " The sun makes it very warm, and I have come 
 to rest for a moment, that is, if you will allow me." 
 
 La Terreuse replied by a growl which did not 
 seem very hospitable, and went on telling her beads, 
 her palsied head bent down and almost touching her 
 kneesi 
 
 Armand took a chair. " You have got very .com- 
 fortable quarters here," he began. " No wonder 
 that you like Count de Tremeillan, who is taking 
 such care of you in your old age," he added, draw- 
 ing closer to la Terreuse. 
 
 "It is nearly four hundred years that we serve 
 the Tremeillan family," said the old woman, in her 
 gruff voice. " It is very natural that the Tremeillans 
 should be kind to us." 
 
 " Of course. Still, if I had been you, I should 
 have asked the Count to put me anvwhere but here." 
 
 " Why so ? " 
 
 " I told you why the other day. I should not care 
 to live in a room where a crime had been committed. 
 I say, people have seen her again," he added, bend- 
 ing mysteriously over the old woman. 
 
 " Who's been seen again ? " 
 
 "The woman that was poisoned; Marianne I 
 know two people in the neighbourhood who saw her. 
 The first time she was seated near a stream and cry- 
 ing. The second time it was close upon twelve 
 o'clock and on a moonlit night, out yonder, down 
 
l6o A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 in the dell, near what they call the Cat's Hole. 
 She was slowly walking along and seemed to be 
 looking for something. She was ghastly pale." 
 
 Armand could not c'atch sight of la Terreuse's face, 
 hidden as it was by the hood. But he was under 
 the impression that her hands shook — at any rate, the 
 beads rattled with a kind of sharp click. 
 
 " You may come upon her one of these days," he 
 went on. "I suppose this is the bed in which she 
 died," he said, pointing to the high bed, hung with 
 curtains, which stood in a dark corner of the room, 
 " If I were you I should not care to sleep in it." 
 
 " Why do you tell me all this ? " inquired la 
 Terreuse, whose voice had become very low and 
 shaky. 
 
 " I only tell you this just for talking's sake. After 
 all when a woman has been an honest woman all her 
 life she is not afraid of the dead. I only wanted to ask 
 you whether you, who are in the park the whole of the 
 day and sometimes at night, have never met this 
 ghost of which several people have told me ? " 
 
 " I have never seen anything and I don't know 
 what you are talking about." After this, Armand 
 could not get another word out of the old woman. 
 She had started telling her beads again, but in a 
 kind of feverish, excited way. So he said good-bye 
 and left the gamekeeper's lodge. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 When Armand was gone la Terreuse sat for a 
 long time near the fireplace motionless, her body 
 almost bent double. But her mind was evidently 
 busily at work, for she moaned and sighed and kept 
 mumbling to herself words without any apparent 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST, l6l 
 
 connection, telling her beads mechanically all the 
 while. She sat for many hours like this. Towards 
 four o'clock she went out as she was in the habit of 
 doing every day to gather wood in the forest. When 
 she came back at nightfall she had a heavy load of 
 twigs and of fresh grass whii-h she had cut for her 
 goat. She flung the load into the small enclosure in 
 front of the lodge, and shouted to the peasant lad to 
 help her to carry it indoors. But the latter had 
 evidently taken advantage of the old woman's 
 absence to go bird-nesting, for no answer came. 
 
 She called again and again with the same result, 
 and after growling at the young imp, she left the 
 wood outside, and carried the grass to a tiny out- 
 house where the goat was tethered. After this she 
 slowly went up the steps leading to the front door. 
 The day was waning fast, and the shutters being 
 shut the room was very dark. Groping about the 
 high mantelshelf she managed to find a candle 
 stuck on a small iron peg and lighted it. The old 
 woman seemed more agitated than usual. Armand's 
 visit had no doubt produced a certain effect. 
 
 For, though endowed with extraordinary energy, 
 she was, like most country people, given to super- 
 stitious fears. She believed in ghosts, in all the 
 strange phantoms conjured up by popular credulity. 
 
 She kept shambling about the room, muttering 
 between her teeth, and though the evening was very 
 mild every now and again shivering from head to foot. 
 Then she fetched a bundle of twigs, flung it on the 
 fire and blew it with all her might. The moment 
 the flame leaped bright and clear up the chimney 
 she blew out the candle. The glare of the fire was 
 sufficient for her. She was going to fetch the sauce- 
 pan xo ha.~.g on her pothook, when passing: before the 
 bedstead she stopped all of a sudden and began to 
 tremble violently. She fancied she had seen the 
 closely-drawn green serge curtains move. 
 
 La Terreuse drew herself up, and the movement 
 
l62 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 caused the black hood to drop on her shoulders and 
 to show the weird head with the unkempt, touzled 
 grey hair, that contrasted so strangely with the 
 copper-coloured complexion and the gleaming dark 
 eyes. 
 
 These eyes, dilated with terror, were now fixed on 
 the bed. She drew back slowly towards the 
 adjoining room, but without taking her eyes off the 
 spot which seemed to have a terrible fascination for 
 her. She was just about to open the door, when she 
 fancied she heard a low sigh. The sigh, the moan, 
 still came from the same dark corner where stood 
 the bedstead. 
 
 Then la Terreuse came back. She walked 
 cautiously, her hands in front of her, her eyes almost 
 starting from their sockets with the dread that had 
 gradually taken possession of her. 
 
 When she was but a few steps away from the 
 couch she stopped and seemed to hesitate. At the 
 same time she was determined to put an end to the 
 anguish that choked her, so she rushed forward and 
 with a violent, desperate movement flung back the 
 curtains. 
 
 At the same moment she uttered a hoarse yell, and 
 fell backward like a log on the large oaken table 
 that stood in the middle of the room. 
 
 Between the curtains, the stiff folds of which 
 reached to the ground, appeared a head, pale with 
 grief and suffering. 
 
 It was Marianne Torquenie's. 
 
 She was seated on the edge of the bed, her arms 
 folded across her breast, wearing the same dress 
 she wore a few days before her death. 
 
 A deep silence had fallen upon the room, broken 
 only by the suppressed rattle in the throat of the 
 old woman, who was gasping with terror and who 
 put one arm across her eyes to shut out the horrible 
 vision. 
 
 The apparition got into an upright position, but so 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 163 
 
 lightly that no sound was heard when its feet touched 
 the ground. For some time it stood confronting 
 la Terreuse, staring at her with a relentless look. 
 
 "Do you know me?" ;t said at last in a slow 
 whisper. And seeing that the terror-stricken old 
 woman did not answer, it went on, " It is you who 
 killed me, and it will not be long before you will 
 stand before the Almighty. But before leaving this 
 world you will have to confess your crime. An 
 innocent man was convicted in your stead, and he 
 will have to be avenged. If you do not confess, I 
 will haunt you day and night, my pale face that 
 frightens you will be near you every minute. Send 
 for the magistrates to-morrow, in this very place and 
 tell them all that happened twenty years ago. If you 
 try to hide a single thing, if you endeavour to tell a 
 single lie, I will come back 1 Do you hear — I will 
 come back ! " 
 
 Marianne Torquenie uttered these words in a 
 threatening voice, her teeth tightly set, and darting 
 a fiery look at la Terreuse as she drew closer to 
 her still. The latter, beside herself with fear, 
 uttered a stifled yell, and sank to the ground. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 About two o'clock next day a carriage was rapidly 
 trundling on the high road in the direction of 
 "d'Albrays." It contained three persons, two 
 magistrates from the Rennes Court and Annand 
 d'Arcay. 
 
 Early in the morning the little peasant lad who 
 lived with la Terreuse had called at Mesnil and 
 asked to see Armand. The urchin told him that the 
 old woman seemed "off her head." She had 
 
164 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 refused to spend the night indoors, and had gone 
 to he down in the outhouse. At her age it was enough 
 to kill her, and he (the lad) was under the impression 
 that she was not long for this world. She did not 
 speak, and sat huddled up in a corner in the garden. 
 She refused to go inside the house. The poor child 
 looked frightened at la Terreuse's extraordinary 
 behaviour. 
 
 " At last this morning she told me to go to you. ' Go 
 to the lawyer at Mesnil,' she said, ' and tell him to bring 
 the magistrates. I want to speak to them.' And here 
 I am," he added, " but I think she wants a doctor more 
 than anything else." 
 
 After hearing all he had to say, Armand gave the 
 urchin a piece of silver, and sent him back to la 
 Terreuse. " You will tell her that I will come to-day 
 and bring two magistrates with me." 
 
 He had the trap brought round in a great hurry, 
 and started for Rennes at a gallop. When there, he 
 went to see two of his friends, to whose discretion he 
 could trust. He told them the whole of the mysterious 
 affair, and the means whereby he was going to wring 
 from la Terreuse a confession of the part she herself 
 had played in that crime of the past. He added that 
 up till now the means had succeeded beyond his hopes, 
 and that la Terreuse seemed disposed to make a clean 
 breast of it, deceived as she was by the likeness of 
 Jeanne Torquenie to her mother, and frightened at 
 the sudden apparition of the woman she had poisoned 
 twenty years ago. But no time was to be lost in noting 
 down her confession, so they decided to go there and 
 then. 
 
 Moreover, during the journey Armand gave the 
 examining magistrate and the advocate-general who 
 accompanied him all the particulars that might prove 
 useful in the task before them. 
 
 The latter felt deeply interested in the narrative of 
 this strange affair. They told Armand that he 
 might depend upon their energy and discretion, 
 
A Village pkiEsf- 165 
 
 and that they would do their utmost to effect the 
 reinstatement of Jean Torquenie in the eyes of law 
 without entailing too painful consequences. They also 
 complimented him upon what he had done, and on 
 his strength of character under circumstances so 
 harrowing to himself. 
 
 The carriage stopped within about fifty yards of the 
 gamekeeper's lodge. They alighted and walked the 
 rest of the way. The peasant lad, who had been on 
 the look out for them, took them inside the house. 
 The old woman was not in the room where she was in 
 the habit of sitting, and where the night before she 
 had been confronted with the terrible spectre of her 
 victim. She had taken refuge in a dark and narrow 
 closet adjoining the kitchen. 
 
 Armand asked his friends to wait a few minutes 
 in the front room, and went to fetch the old woman. 
 But he was almost obliged to use violence in order 
 to make her leave her hiding-place. At last he 
 succeeded in bringing her inside, holding her by the 
 wrist, and forced her. as it were, on a wooden stool 
 near the fireplace. She seemed utterly crushed, her 
 hood was over her head, as usual, and she sat bent 
 double, and shaking in all her limbs. 
 
 " You sent for us," said Armand, in a curt voice. 
 " What do you want with us ? " 
 
 She did not answer, and the young barrister was 
 obliged to repeat his question. 
 
 " I want nothing, and I have nothing to say to 
 you," at last growled la Terreuse. 
 
 " Yet you seemed in a great hurry to see us ? " 
 
 " I want first of all to speak to the master." 
 
 " What master ? " 
 
 " The Count— Count Henri." 
 
 " That's impossible." Then, as if suddenly in- 
 spired, he added : " That's impossible, for you will 
 never see Count de Tremeillan again." He waited 
 a httle while. " Monsieur de Tremeillan died last 
 night," he said slowly. 
 
l66 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 The old woman shuddered, and raised her white 
 head. " Dead ? " she yelled. 
 
 " He is dead." 
 
 " Has he seen her also, perhaps? " she mumbled, 
 shivering with fear. 
 
 _" Consider well," added Armand. " We complied 
 with your request to come here to-day. If you refuse 
 to speak we'll go at once and we'll not come back 
 again." 
 
 " I have nothing to say," growled la Terreuse. 
 
 Armand made a sign to the two magistrates that 
 accompanied him. They all three got up and went 
 towards the door. They had already reached the 
 threshold when la Terreuse, who seemed terribly 
 excited, exclaimed : 
 
 " One moment, gentlemen ; one moment, I beg of 
 you." 
 
 They stood still. 
 
 " Now, gentlemen," she said, casting a timid and 
 furtive glance at them, " you wouldn't abandon a 
 poor old woman like this. My head is not very 
 strong, and what you have just told me . . . Dead, 
 he is dead ... he was as firm and as strong as one 
 of our oaks in the park. He died last night. She 
 must have cast a spell on him. Ah," she gasped 
 all at once after a long silence ; " it is choking me, 
 I can't hold out any longer. I am choking, and I'll 
 tell you all about it. But you will not do him any 
 harm, seeing that he is dead ; will you ? " 
 
 She dropped her head in her black and rather red 
 hands and seemed to think the matter over for'several 
 moments, while Armand and themagistrates resumed 
 their seats. Monsieur Jousserin took out his pocket- 
 book ready to write down his notes. 
 
 "If anyone had told me I should not carry this 
 secret to the grave with me I should not have 
 believed him," said la Terreuse, starling at the logs 
 smouldering away on the hearth. " To think that I 
 am bound to speak, after having kept it to myself 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 1 67 
 
 for twenty years — after having hidden it from all the 
 world. Yes, I am bound to speak ; if I don't . . . . " 
 
 And again she shook with fear as she cast a wild look 
 in the direction of the bed. 
 
 " After all," she went on, shaking her grizzled head, 
 •' it will relieve me. Every now and then it chokes me. 
 Dead ! . . he is dead ! Gentlemen," she said, draw- 
 ing her stool closer to the three men and speaking in a 
 scarcely audible voice; "gentlemen, it is I who killed 
 Viscount de Mortr^e .... it is I who poisoned 
 Marianne." 
 
 And impelled partly by her own wish to be relieved 
 of her secret, partly under the pressure of Armand's 
 questions, she told the dramatic events that had occurred 
 twenty years before. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 La Terreuse in those days lived in a kind of 
 tumble-down shanty in the middle of the park, 
 which had formerly been a meeting-place for Count 
 de Tr^meillan's shooting parties. In fact Count de 
 Tr^meillan, who had never forgotten the services the 
 woman rendered him during his adventurous ex- 
 pedition in La Vendue, had never been able to induce 
 her to take up her quarters in the house itself She 
 preferred the independence of this somewhat savage 
 existence. 
 
 Count de Tr^meillan often stopped at the hut for 
 a little while on his way homeward from his day's 
 sport. La Terreuse was one of the few human 
 beings for whom he felt some sympathy. Her 
 blind devotion, the attachment, savouring of the 
 fanatical and sublime, had perhaps touched his 
 heart, because it reminded him of the exaggerated 
 
168 A Village priest. 
 
 respect of servants of yore for their masters. The 
 woman was, as it were, a connecting link with the 
 past which he admired and regretted. 
 
 One afternoon he entered the hut as he was in the 
 habit of doing from time to time, and asked her for 
 a glass of cider. This was in the month of April. 
 
 La Terreuse seemed in no hurry to attend to 
 him, but stood stockstill staring at him with all 
 her might. Seeing which, he became impatient, 
 " Did you hear me ? " he snapped ; " and are you 
 going to give me something to drink ? " 
 
 She kept dodging about the room, pretending to 
 look for a glass, then she went to a cupboard, and 
 at last, as if prompted by a sudden resolution, she 
 came back to the Count and said abruptly, 
 " Master, you must not go out shooting any more ?" 
 
 " And why ?" asked the Count, frowning. 
 
 " You must not leave the house. For while you 
 are out enemies may slip in." 
 
 "What do you mean? Speak out," said the 
 Count, impatiently, " To what enemies are you 
 alluding ?" 
 
 " I am alluding to a man who is after your 
 belongings." 
 
 " My belongings ?" 
 
 " I am alluding to j'oung de Mortree." 
 
 "Look here, are you bent upon trying my temper ?" 
 yelled the Count, who had turned pale at the sound 
 of the name he detested. " You have always had 
 that mania of trying to puzzle people. It is all very 
 well with j'our peasant folk to whom you are telling 
 their good fortune. But with me you must speak 
 out," 
 
 " Poor people are often punished when they tell 
 the truth to their master. Stiil, it is best you should 
 know all." Then coming closer to the Count, she 
 went on in a low voice : " Young Viscount de 
 Mortr6e and the Countess meet nearly every day. 
 Sometimes it is at Marianne's — I mean Torquenie's 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 1 69 
 
 wife, at others it is in the park. They also write to one 
 another. Marianne takes the letters to ' Les Marnes,' 
 like this, in her apron." 
 
 The Count took up a chair with both hands and 
 dashed it to the ground with such violence that it broke 
 to pieces. At the same time he uttered a yell like that 
 of a wild beast, and rushed to the door. 
 
 La Terreuse flung herself in front of him and stopped 
 him on the threshold. " One moment," she said, with 
 a murderous look in her eyes, "you want to kill 
 him ? " 
 
 " I want to kill them both," he hissed, gripping la 
 Terreuse's shoulder as in a vice to get her out of his 
 way. 
 
 "You have .the right to do so," she said; "but 
 take care, master, not to put yourself in the wrong. 
 You must take them unawares . . . and then, I'll do 
 the rest. You know that out yonder I wasn't afraid 
 of bringing my man down. You must not soil your 
 hands. Leave it to me ; I have got a little plan of 
 my own that will keep the law out of your affairs. 
 But you must pretend to know nothing until I tell 
 you. In order to trap the bird you must not show 
 it the trap. I have been thinking over all this since 
 I saw them sitting chatting one evening on one of 
 the seats in the park. Master, just allow your 
 faithful Jouannette to give you some advice. Do 
 not go back to the house, you would do something 
 terrible. Stop here, and send word to the Countess 
 that you are gone to the Marquis de Rieuset or to 
 Messieurs d'Argis, it does not matter which. She 
 vill think herself free and take advantage of it. You 
 will take this poor bed, it is very wretched, but I can 
 only offer you what I have got. I will go to the park. 
 I know the way he comes, and I will watch for him 
 day and night. I will come and tell you at the right 
 moment." 
 
 Count de Trdmeillan did not fall in with the plan 
 proposed by la Terreuse without a great deal of 
 
 N 
 
170 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 opposition. His violent character prompted him to 
 make an example there and then. Still, la Terreuse 
 persuaded him to be patient, for at least a few 
 hours. During the evening, when he had retired to 
 a corner of the room, sombre and taciturn, arranging 
 his scheme of revenge, the woman at last unfolded 
 the diabolical project she had contrived to kill 
 Viscount de Mortr6e, without running any risk. 
 She furthermore told him the tales bruited about in 
 the neighbourhood. People would have it that the 
 Viscount was carrying on an intrigue with Marianne 
 Torquenie. They migV.t take advantage of these 
 rumours, and if the murder was discovered lead 
 justice on a wrong track. 
 
 Count de TremeiJlan listened without saying a 
 word. He strode up and down the room, clanking 
 his hobnailed shooting boots on the hard mud floor. 
 But he uttered no protest at la Terreuse's infamous 
 proposals ; the idea of casting a slur upon the reputa- 
 tion of an honest woman, of having an innocent man 
 convicted in his stead, ehcited no cry of indignation 
 on his part. 
 
 The first and foremost consideration to him was 
 to hide the disgrace that had been cast on his 
 name. The insult had to be avenged, but it had 
 to be done with assured impunity, and to gain this 
 end any and every means would be welcome. 
 
 " You are a good creature," he said to la Terreuse 
 when she had ceased speaking. " You are right, 
 I will remain here. You shall light me a fire ; I 
 will pass the night in this armchair, and make up 
 my mind as to what to do." 
 
 La Terreuse went to another corner of the room, 
 and came back with a bundle of clothing, which 
 she opened, and took from it a short carabine. 
 " This carabine belongs to him," she said, dropping 
 her voice. " I took it from Us place. When we 
 have done with it we will put it back again." 
 
 At the same time a terrible smile rose to her lips. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. I71 
 
 Count de Tretneillan stopped [for two days at la 
 Terreuse's. Everyone in the house thought he was 
 away. While he was hiding at his accomplice's the 
 latter spent her days and nights outside watching, 
 spying, carefully observing everything that went on 
 between " Les Marnes " and " d'Albrays." She had 
 resumed her savage ways ; she was like a she-wolf in 
 search of food. She only came at long intervals to 
 the hut, saying a few hurried words to the Count, 
 flinging a hunk of bread and a flask of brandy into 
 her wallet, then departed, hugging the brushwood, 
 wrapt in her big, black cloak. 
 
 One night the" Count, who had dozed off by the 
 fireplace, was awakened by two loud knocks on the 
 door. When he opened it la Terreuse bounded so 
 violently into the room as to almost upset him. She 
 seemed out of breath; still she was able to gasp: 
 " Quick ! be quick." 
 
 " What is it ? " asked the Count ; but without 
 answering la Terreuse went to the corner of the 
 room, took the carabine from the bundle of clothes, 
 loaded it quickly and shouldered it. Then she 
 rushed out of the hut making a sign for trie Count to 
 follow her. 
 
 She walked so quickly that the Count had great 
 difficulty in keeping up with her. In spite of the 
 dark night she cut her way across the wood with 
 wonderful surety, until at last they got to the house, 
 where la Terreuse made her master go down into the 
 dry moat that ran round the building. They both 
 crouched down and watched as the sportsman 
 watches for game. The deep silence was unbroken 
 save for the heavy breathing of la Terreuse, who 
 seemed thoroughly done up. 
 
 After a few moments when she had somewhat 
 recovered, she said to her companion, " I have run 
 all the way from the Alannes crossings" (it was close 
 to " Les Marnes"). "I saw Viscount Marcellin on 
 foot and wrapped in a large cloak which covered him 
 
172 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 from head to foot. He looked as if he were coming 
 this way. You don't know that I saw him come out 
 of this door the other night," and she pointed to a 
 small, low door on the other side of the moat. 
 
 " And to think that you did not kill him on the 
 spot," howled the Count. " Under my own 
 roof .... he darkens my door. • . . Oh, 
 the pair of degraded wretches." Then the howl 
 dropped into a kind of sombrC; savage, bloodthirsty 
 hiss. " You shall give me your carabine by and 
 by, Jouannette," he said. 
 
 But la Terreuse shook her head. " I told you 
 that you ought not to soil your hands, master," she 
 replied doggedly. " Leave it to me." 
 
 Then for a good while they crouched silently by 
 one another's side, the Count drawing every now and 
 then long, deep sighs, which were more like the low 
 growls of the brute in the jungle. In fact, every 
 minute seemed an age to him. If Viscount de 
 Mortr6e had appeared on the spot, not a hundred 
 Terreuses would have prevented him from flinging 
 himself upon the young fellow and strangling him 
 with his own hands. And such a revenge would 
 have shown more courage, would have been less 
 blamable, than the odious trap planned by la 
 Terreuse and basely acquiesced in by the Count. 
 
 An hour went by, during which la Terreuse 
 seemed terribly and strangely agitated. She kept 
 mumbling and growling inarticulate sentences. 
 
 " You must have made a mistake," at last said 
 the Count, impatiently. " It was not he." 
 
 " It was he right enough; I recognised him be- 
 cause he is a little bit lame," replied la Terreuse. 
 
 "Then he did not come in this direction, per- 
 haps?" 
 
 " Yes, he did. He took the chestnut avenue. I 
 was obliged to leave him to come and tell you. 
 But I feel certain he was coming this way." 
 
 " Perhaps they arranged to meet in the park.'" 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. ' 17a 
 
 "It is too cold. No, I am sure they did not, 
 Besides, they saw one another yesterday inside the 
 house ; they naturally thought they would recom- 
 mence to-night. They are under the impression 
 that you are miles and miles away." 
 
 The Count with difficulty suppressed a yell, 
 " Hold your tongue, you wretch. Do you not sec 
 that you are torturing me," he moaned. 
 
 " You should not be afraid of hearing the truth," 
 clenched la Terreuse energetically. " Look things 
 in the face." Then, after a moment's silence, " ] 
 am of opinion that they are inside the house to night, 
 But which way did he get in ? He would not have 
 dared to come by the front entrance. Last night he 
 went out by the other one. Look here, master, ] 
 am only an old idiot, for I did not keep watcl 
 properly." 
 
 Saying which she waved her hand in despair anc 
 abruptly rose to her feet. 
 
 " Whither are you going ? " asked the Count, whc 
 in spite of himself, yielded to the influence of this 
 strange creature. 
 
 But la Terreuse seemed to have changed her mine 
 for she crouched down once more and half-cocked he: 
 carabine. 
 
 " No," she said, " it isn't worth while. He i! 
 surely inside." Then she seemed to reflect for a iev 
 moments and the upshot came in the guise of i 
 question asked in a low voice, " Master, you havi 
 the key of the front door ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Well, go inside and straight to the Countess'i 
 room. If he Is with her he will try to get away, am: 
 I will watch here for the game you have startled." 
 
 The Count jumped up quickly. The advice talliec 
 too much with his violent instincts for him not t< 
 follow it. 
 
 " You are right," he said, and moved a few steps 
 
 •' Above all, do not touch either one or the other,' 
 
174 A VILLAGE PRIES*. 
 
 insisted la Terreuse, still retaining him. "If I was 
 foolish enough to let him go in, I swear to you that I 
 will not let him leave the house alive." 
 
 " But if you should miss him ? " 
 
 I^ Terreuse leant forward and said in a sinister 
 tone : 
 
 " I swear by God's holy name that in four and twenty 
 hours he will be a corpse." 
 
 The Count went away with a firm step in the direction 
 of the front entrance. 
 
 Ten minutes elapsed but in spite of her careful watch 
 she could not see a living being. She fully expected to 
 see Viscount Marcellin issue from the small door. 
 Her mind was made up. She meant to dog his foot- 
 steps, and to kill him when he was outside the confines 
 of the park. 
 
 Her sole fear was that Count de Trdmeillan would 
 be unable to contain himself on surprising his wife 
 with Monsieur de Mortrde, and that he might kill 
 both there and then. From sheer anxiety her breath 
 became thick and short. She strained her ears, but 
 could hear nothing of what was going inside the 
 house. A deep silence hung over everything around 
 her. 
 
 It was getting daylight, consequently between three 
 and four o'clock. 
 
 All of a sudden her ear seemed to catch the sound 
 of a pane of glass being broken. But it was on the 
 other side of the house and the sound seemed to pro- 
 ceed from the upper stories. 
 
 She ran along the moat, which, as we have already 
 said, surrounded the house, and in a few moments 
 reached the opposite wing. With one single glance 
 she examined the front of the house. It was still very 
 dark : nevertheless, she fancied she could see a black 
 indistinct figure slide down the angle made by a 
 hiL;li turret. " It must be he," she thought, and 
 then like the trapper who at last sees the long 
 expected quarry within his reach, she could not help 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 175 
 
 starting with a cruel movement of joy. She care- 
 fully looked to the cap of her carabine. 
 
 The man came down as quickly as he could along 
 the chain of the lightning conductor. It looked as 
 if, surprised by the Count, he had fled across the 
 house, and made for the upper stories. He had 
 smashed one of the windows of the attics, got out 
 upon the roof and was now making a most perilous 
 descent. 
 
 La Terreuse watched every movement with rapt 
 attention. She felt intensely moved, and afraid lest 
 his strength should fail him and he should leave go 
 hold of the chain of the lightning conductor. For if 
 he fell down and maimed or killed himself the 
 scandal could no longer be hushed up and the Count 
 would be disgraced. 
 
 But there was an end at last of this selfish anxiety, 
 for the Viscount de Mortr6e managed to get to the 
 bottom of the moat in safety. He peered uneasily 
 aroimd, then clambered up the embankment and 
 took to his heels, his body bent double almost so as 
 to escape observation. La Terreuse was after him 
 immediately and it was getting broad daylight. At 
 any rate it was already light enough to be able to 
 distinguish things, and this semi-obscurity was, if 
 anything, in favour of la Terreuse, for it enabled 
 her to follow her victim unperceived. 
 
 The latter was very nimble, and made good head- 
 way. When he reached the park he stopped of a 
 sudden and wheeled round to see if he was being 
 tracked. La Tefreuse failed to get behind a tree in 
 time and the Viscou'rit caught sight of her. For 
 a moment or so he seerned' ' undecided what to 
 do. But he had no weapon upon Hlrrl "and could 
 therefore not engage upon a struggle with', the 
 individual who appeared to be in pursuit. He 
 would have incurred the risk of being recognised 
 and of irrevocably ruining the unhappy woman who 
 had given herself to him. 
 
l'J$ A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 Monsieur de Trdmeillan had not seen him. Vis- 
 count Marcellin had fled the moment the Count 
 entered the ground-floor rooms of the house. Marianne 
 Torquenid, who kept strict watch, had warned 
 them in time. Hence he was justified in believing 
 that the husband was still ignorant of everything, 
 and that the shadow that dogged his footsteps was 
 that of a servant who mistook him for a burglar or a 
 thief. 
 
 Consequently, he resumed his course, which had been 
 interrupted for a moment. Every now and then he 
 looked round, and noticed the vague, indistinct, black 
 form behind him. The distance between them remained 
 about the same. 
 
 Then he flung himself into the thickest part of the 
 wood his face and hands bleeding, lacerated, as 
 they were by the brambles and thorns he tried to 
 brush aside and to crush in his mad course. For 
 a moment he was under the impression of having 
 given his pursuer the slip. He had come to a rather 
 large clearing, and heard no sound around him. 
 Like the stag that has succeeded in throwing the 
 honuds off the scent, he stood still, -drew a deep 
 breath and looked up to reconnoitre. But the 
 respite was a short one, the sound of snapped twigs 
 behind him made him shudder, for it came closer 
 and closer. In another moment he saw the tops 
 of the saplings sway to and fro. There was no 
 doubt about it, his pursuer was on his track again, 
 so he rushed into the wood once more and kept 
 straight before him. He made not the least 
 attempt to trace his way, but trusted wholly to 
 chance. Being young and very strong, he hoped to 
 tire out the unknown enemy who pursued so relent- 
 lessly. He made sure that the latter was unarmed, 
 for if not, what would have prevented him from 
 firing by now. But la Terreuse was determined not 
 to kill her man on Monsieur de Trdmeillan's grounds, 
 that was why she had not made use as yet of her 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST 177 
 
 carabine. Viscount Marcellin came to the conclusion 
 that it was only a trial of endurance and agility 
 between him and the unknown pursuer, and felt not 
 the least anxiety on that point. So, instead of making 
 once more for the thick of the wood, and exhausting 
 his strength in a toilsome course across the dense 
 vegetation and interwoven branches, he took the first 
 path before him, and turning neither to the right nor 
 to the left ran as fast as he could. The path led to 
 one of those straight long glades with stunted grass 
 under foot, and a dome of foliage overhead, which 
 regularly intersect the densely-wooded estates in those 
 parts. He went on and on until he came to a kind of 
 crossways, in the centre of which stood a grey, mouldy 
 finger-post, the boards of which had disappeared years 
 before. 
 
 He made for what he believed to be the way to the 
 road to Laval and to " Les Marnes " ; and at last after 
 three-quarters of an hour of mad gallop he emerged 
 from the wood into a road between two embankments, 
 and lined with hedges. Beyond this lay the fields, inter- 
 sected with ditches and raised embankments, after the 
 Breton fashion. 
 
 He was under the impression that from the moment 
 he had emerged from the wood his pursuer had lost 
 ground. Another spurt and he would be beyond his 
 reach. 
 
 Though utterly spent and panting for breath he did 
 not stop for a single instant, but pursued his course. 
 But about a hundred yards further on he was com- 
 pelled to come to a standstill. The road was absolutely 
 blocked by a mountain of newly-cut trees thrown right 
 across. 
 
 He had to retrace his steps along the ditches, to 
 fly across the open fields. He had left the Tr^meillan 
 estate, and this was the very moment la Terreuse 
 had fixed upon for the execution of her diabolical 
 plan. She probably knew that the road between the 
 two embankments was barred, for instead of follow- 
 
178 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 ing him, she cut across a narrow path that led 
 to a thickly wooded coppice, and disappeared in 
 it. 
 
 Her strength was also giving way ; she felt as if her 
 head was splitting, her eyes were starting from their 
 sockets, her breath came thick and fast. 
 
 But she was not going to relinquish her prey. 
 Had Viscount Marcellin been a hundred times as 
 strong and as active she would still have followed 
 Jiim, and only given in when dropping dead with 
 fatigue. 
 
 \\'hen she got fairly into the coppice, which stood on 
 the borders of those wooded moors designated in those 
 parts bv the name of Le Bocage, she flung herself 
 down, and, supporting herself on both hands, craned 
 forward to watch for the reappearance of Viscount de 
 Mortree. 
 
 She herself was so utterly exhausted that at each 
 breath she took she uttered a painful moan which 
 seemed to tear her chest to pieces. 
 
 Facing her lay a vast tract of freshly-ploughed 
 land, hedged in on all sides. She knew the country 
 well and was aware that Viscount Marcellin, finding 
 the road barred to him, would have to come that 
 way. 
 
 She had not many seconds to wait. All at once a 
 dark head peered from the matted brambles. The 
 poor gentleman's face was haggard with anguish and 
 fatigue. He left his stooping position when he got on 
 to the embankment, carefully looked around him in every 
 direction, and finally set off at a run across the ploughed 
 field. 
 
 He seemed utterly done up ; his strength was 
 apparently gone, for his pace was much slower than 
 before. He was hoping perhaps that he had thrown 
 his pursuer off the scent, at any rate he ran less 
 quickly. He had reached the end of the field, and 
 left one of his shoes behind him in the heavy soil ; 
 he was just going to scale the hedge in front of him 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. I79 
 
 wlien a shot rang upon the air. Without uttering a 
 cry he dropped head foremost into the ditch at tlie 
 foot of the embankment. 
 
 In a few seconds, la Terreuse, who had re- 
 covered all her energy, ran across the short space 
 between her hiding-place and the spot where 
 Viscount de Mortree had gone down. She had seen 
 him disappear, still she might have missed him ; he 
 might only be wounded. When she got to the 
 ditch she bent forward. The body lay in front of 
 her, motionless, the blood trickling down the 
 forehead. 
 
 A horrible smile, showing the gleaming white 
 teeth, lighted up the woman's face. She cautiously 
 swept the horizon in every direction, then craned 
 her neck towards the high road, and listened 
 intently. Mot a living soul was nigh. 
 
 After this she softly stepped down the embank- 
 ment, looked at her victim for an instant, and placed 
 her hand on his heart. Marcellin de Mortr6e had 
 ceased to live. 
 
 Slinging her carabine across her shoulder, she 
 clambejed up the embankment, crossed the field 
 once more and disappeared among the hedges and 
 ditches of Le Bocage. On that same day the 
 Countess de Tremeillan left for the South. 
 
 A few weeks later Jean Torquenie was arrested. 
 La Terreuse had not wasted her time; she had 
 quickly spread the story of the intrigue between 
 Marianne Torquenie and Viscount Marcellin de 
 Mortree. 
 
 Poor Marianne was not in a position to deny the 
 story. The unexpected appearance of Count de 
 Tremeillan and the subsequent terrible scene had 
 driven her frantic with fear and trembling ; -she was 
 stricken down with a violent fever and had been 
 delirious nearly the whole of the time. She had 
 remained utterly unconscious of the events that 
 eventually led to the arrest of her husband. 
 
l8o A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 La Terreuse had taken up her quarters in the 
 lodge, ostensibly to look after her, in reality to care- 
 fully to watch events in the game-keeper's lodge and 
 to insure the success of the infamous plot she had 
 concocted. Taking advantage of the absence of 
 Jean Torquenie, of his wife's illness, she had restored 
 the powder-stained carabine to the place whence she 
 had taken it to kill Viscount de Mortree. . 
 
 The terrible event had left Count de Tr6meillan a 
 prey to the most intense melancholy. He no longer 
 stirred from the large room on the ground floor, 
 where he had taken up his quarters, and whither 
 his bed had been taken. 
 
 La Terreuse came to see him from time to time, 
 but he barely opened his lips to her. The sight of 
 the woman seemed to inspire him with profound 
 disgust. 
 
 As for the latter, she appeared not to have abated 
 one jot of her savage energy ; her active devotion in 
 his behalf never failed for a single moment. She 
 appeared to take no notice of her master's curt 
 answers nor of his fits of temper. 
 
 When he was more than usually sombre or 
 irritable, she told him not to be uneasy. " Every- 
 thing is going all right, master," she said. And 
 then she gave him an account of her ruses to throw 
 the authorities off the scent, to divert the suspicion 
 of the murder, perpetrated in obedience to the 
 Count's behest, to some one else. 
 
 One evening, however, when coming to see him, 
 she seemed more agitated than usual. She looked 
 uncomfortable, and her glibness of tongue was at 
 fault, 
 
 " What is the matter with you ? " asked the 
 Count, with r. frown that betokened fear as much as 
 anger. " Is there anything new ? " 
 
 " Yes, tlicre's something new," said la Terreuse 
 averting her head. " M.inanne Torquenie is de.->d." 
 
 The Coi;nt dre.v a lon^ breath of relief. He 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. l8l 
 
 expected something more terrible as far as he was 
 personally concerned. 
 
 But reasurred on that score he began to reflect 
 upon what la Terreuse had just told him, and called 
 to mind her evident hesitation, the troubled look that 
 preceded the communication of the news. 
 
 " You did not kill her, I trust ? " he said, looking 
 her straight in her eyes. 
 
 " If she had not died, she might have blabbed, 
 and we should have been undone," said la Terreuse 
 in a sombre tone. 
 
 The Count turned livid, and stared around him 
 terror-stricken. But not a word of blame passed his 
 lips. He understood that this murder was necessary, 
 and in spite of the horror he felt he did not dare 
 vent his indignation on la Terreuse. He felt that 
 she but spoke the truth. The death of Marianne 
 Torquenie, of the only witness who was acquainted 
 with the particulars of the drama that had been 
 enacted at "d'Albrays," during that terrible April 
 night — the death of Marianne Torquenie insured 
 his complete impunity, and cast a veil over the 
 disgrace of the Countess. 
 
 The trial took place, and Jean Torquenie owing to 
 the crushing evidence of the witnesses, above all to 
 that of la Terreuse, was convicted and sentenced, 
 without Count de Tremeillan lifting a finger to 
 prevent this infamous thing. True, he had the 
 questionable courage to appear in court in order to 
 give Jean Torquenie a kind of stereotyped character, 
 by declaring that the gamekeeper had always been 
 an honest and faithful servant. He probably 
 thought that after this he was quits with the 
 unfortunate man whom he had sent to a convict 
 prison. 
 
l82 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 CPIAPTER XXIX. 
 
 It took a long while to drag all this from la 
 Terreuse, but her statement was completed at last, 
 and she consented to sign the report of it. After 
 that her strength gave way altogether, and she sank 
 back in a chair, utterly undone, huddled together, 
 as if an iron hand had suddenly crushed her with its 
 weight. 
 
 " Our business is at an end here, gentlemen,'' said 
 Armand, rising, "so we may just as well go." 
 
 In the garden they came upon the peasant lad who 
 lived with la Terreuse. 
 
 " Run to Monsieur Dubois, the Vicar of Bonniferes, at 
 once," said Armand to the boy, putting a piece of silver 
 in his hand. " Tell him to come directly to confess a 
 dying woman.'' And he pointed to the room where la 
 Terreuse was sitting. 
 
 The boy looked terribly frightened. He cast a terror- 
 stricken glance in the direction of the lodge, then 
 took off his clogs, and started off at a gallop towards 
 Bonnieres. 
 
 On their way back Armand and his two com- 
 panions discussed the important statement of which 
 they had become the depositaries. It was then 
 only that Armand fully grasped the meaning of 
 Vicar Dubois' words on the occasion of his last 
 visit to him. " You should not be too hard on him," 
 the priest had said in speaking of Monsieur de 
 Tremeillan. " Perhaps he is less guilty than you 
 suspect." 
 
 And, in fact. Count de Tremeillan had not been 
 the direct author of the crimes. His only fault — a 
 fault still sufficiently grave and crushing — had been 
 to let la Terreuse accomplish her diabolical plot 
 and not to denounce her further crimes in order tg 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 183 
 
 shield himself from the consequences of Viscount 
 de Mortree's murder. 
 
 " This wretched woman is probably not long for 
 this world," remarked the examining magistrate. 
 " Should she die there might be a means of arrang- 
 ing matters so as to avoid all scandal." 
 
 The two magistrates returned to Rennes and 
 Armand took a bridle path leading to Mesnil. 
 
 Before leaving his friends Armand had impressed 
 upon them once more the necessity of the strictest 
 secrecy and appointed to meet them next day in 
 order to concert plans for taking decisive action. 
 
 He reached Mesnil in time for dinner, and could 
 not help uttering a cry of surprise as he entered 
 the room. Marguerite de Tremeillan was seated at 
 table by the side of his mother. For a moment he 
 stood motionless, utterly taken aback. He did not 
 know whether he was awake or dreaming. Madame 
 d'Arcay explained the situation in a few words. 
 " Fancy my meeting with the dear child just as I 
 was going out about two hours ago," she said to 
 Armand. " She was coming to see me, so I brouglt 
 her back to dine with us. Virginie shall take her 
 home to-night. I gave her a good talking to for 
 having been so long without coming to see her 
 mother that is to be." 
 
 While dear Madame d'Arcay was meandering on, 
 Armand looked attentively at Marguerite's wan face. 
 He noticed her red eylids, the forced smile that 
 played on her colourless lips. He read the intense 
 anguish of the poor girl in the fixed stare she gave 
 him. The situation was indeed a strange one, and 
 rendered more harrowing by the prosaic complexion 
 put upon it by a third party. 
 
 For with the exquisite tact possessed by most 
 women, Marguerite had fully grasped the fact at 
 once that Madame d'Arcay had not the remotest 
 suspicion of the drama tliat was being enacted under 
 her very eyes, 
 
184 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 Margudrite had accepted Madame d'Arcay's invi- 
 tation because she wished to see Armand. It was 
 her ardent longing to speak to him, to hear from his 
 own lips the state of affairs that had made her break 
 trough the confinement imposed by the harsh will of 
 Count de Tr(5meillan. 
 
 And for the next two hours, with her brain 
 throbbing and burning, with her heart knocking 
 against her ribs each time she saw a shadow in the 
 garden or heard the clanging of the bell at the gate, 
 she had been compelled to listen and reply to the 
 affectionate commonplaces of the kind-hearted 
 matron, who already looked upon her as her 
 daughter, who kept talking of dresses and wedding 
 outfits, of domestic arrangements, while she sat- 
 with sinking heart and feeling that the frail fabric 
 of her happiness was giving way on all sides. 
 
 The dinner was a downright martyrdom to the 
 young people. They felt compelled to dissemble, 
 to smile, 10 talk small talk, to look happy and 
 cheerful, in short, to hide the anxiety that was 
 gnawing their heartstrings. 
 
 Armand failed to explain to himself the un- 
 expected arrival of Marguerite. By what means 
 had she recovered her liberty ? Or had Count de 
 Trcmeillan relented at last ? Was she a meFsenger 
 of comfort, or was she come to fling herself into his 
 arms that he might shield her from the torture 
 inflicted upon her. 
 
 He guessed well enough that his mother's meeting 
 with ]\Iarguerite was due to an unfortunate accident. 
 Mademoiselle de Tremeillan was on her way to see 
 him, as she had come to see him once before at 
 Rennes. 
 
 She only hoped to see him and no one but him ; 
 she wanted to speak to him by himself. But, becom- 
 ing aware of Madame d'Arcay's absolute ignorance 
 of what was going on, she had been unable to refuse 
 the latter's invitation to return with her to Mesnil. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 185 
 
 She had even deluded the old lady into the belief 
 that the visit was meant for her. 
 
 Several hours had gone by, and it was her un- 
 abated, ardent desire to see Armand that had made 
 her accept the pressing invitation to stay to dinner 
 of her intended mother-in-law. 
 
 He came at last, she was near him, and still they 
 could not talk unrestrictedly and ask one another the 
 questions that racked their hearts, that rose burn- 
 ing to their lips. 
 
 The agony lasted for one long, weary hour. 
 Whether Madame d'Arcay at last noticed the 
 embarrassment of the young people or not was never 
 known, but under the pretext of having to give 
 some instructions to the servants, she rose when the 
 dessert was on the table and left them to themselves. 
 
 The moment the door closed behind her, Mar- 
 gu6rite started from her chair and cast a desperate 
 glance at Armand. "Take me into the garden," 
 she gasped. " Be quick ! be quick or I shall 
 choke." 
 
 A few moments later they were seated side by 
 side in a small arbour of honeysuckle at the angle 
 of a dense bower which completely hid them from 
 everyone. 
 
 " Do not ask me how I came here," said Mar- 
 guerite in a low and quick tone. " I am quaking with 
 fear. I fancy at every moment that he is coming 
 to look for me, that he will drag me away by force 
 and put me back into the room which he has con- 
 verted into a prison cell for me. I am dying with 
 agony. I am left without news, and I have come to ask 
 you for it. What has happened ? What is going to 
 happen ? What are you doing ? Is there any hope 
 of this horrible martj'rdom coming to an end soon ?" 
 
 " Yes, it will be over very soon. Courage, my 
 dear Marguerite," said Armand, clasping both her 
 hands. " How will it end ? I am unable to tell 
 you. But I swear to you, my darling, that my love 
 
1 86 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 for you will make up one day for what you have 
 suffered during this horrible period of suspense." 
 
 A wan smile played on Marguerite's white lips, 
 while she feebly returned the pressure of Armand's 
 hands. "Courage," she repeated in a firmer voice. 
 " My courage will not fail me. But the time is 
 precious, so let us be quick. I have been able to elude 
 the vigilance of those whom my father told off to watch 
 me, but they may perceive my absence at any moment 
 Do you know, Armand, what my father said to me 
 yesterday ? He declared to me that if I attempted to 
 see you, he would take me away from France, to Italy, 
 to Austria, and that he would have me shut up in a 
 convent." 
 
 In as few words as possible Armand told the young 
 girl what had happened since they had last met. He 
 also told her how he had managed to wring the con- 
 fession from la Terreuse. 
 
 " Then it is really true, after all," sighed Marguerite, 
 for up to the last moment the poor child had fostered 
 the hope that the drama with which she was closely 
 bound up might be only a horrible dream, and it 
 wanted the formal confessions of la Terreuse to con- 
 vince her of the reality of her misfortune. " And now," 
 she concluded with a look full of anguish, " what are 
 you going to do ? " 
 
 " I will go to your father the first thing in the 
 morning, and tell him that the authorities know every- 
 thing, that they have got the written statement of la 
 Terreuse. He must take a decision one way or the 
 other. I am still hoping that, driven back as he is into 
 his last retrenchments, seeing as he must do that the 
 confession of his accomplice deprives him of his last 
 chance, he will consent to go, to leave France. Then, 
 when the trial takes place, it will be conducted care- 
 fully and discreetly ; la Terreuse will be convicted, for 
 ohe is charged with the brunt of the crimes. I am almost 
 certain that the law will be lenient with regard to your 
 father." 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. igy 
 
 " If he leaves France he will take me with him, 
 and I shall be lost to you," exclaimed Marguerite 
 in a tone of despair. " What a terrible position 
 you have placed us in. What are we to do or to 
 decide ? Wherever I look I only see a series of 
 insuperable obstacles. Armand," she went on with 
 great warmth, " you know that everything is lost ; 
 you do not tell me the truth ; you know that I can 
 never be your wife ; but you are trying to hoodwink 
 me so that I may leave you to pursue to the bitter 
 end the horrible duty you have set yourself." 
 
 " Marguerite, do you care for me? " asked Armand, 
 drawing close to the young girl, and taking the 
 delicately shaped head between his feverish palms. 
 
 " Great heavens ! and he asks if I care for him," 
 she replied in a deeply fervent tone. " In spite of 
 all I am suffering through you, I have never ceased 
 to love you for a single instant." 
 
 " And I worship you with all my soul — yes, I idolize 
 you, my beloved, my wife," said Armand, laying the 
 splendid dark head of the young girl on his shoulder. 
 " We will succeed in removing all those obstacles. 
 You shall be mine, and we will be happy still. You 
 say the Count de Tremeillan will take you away ? 
 What does it matter ? I will find you wherever 
 you go. Heaven be praised, the days are gone by 
 when they could imprison young girls against 
 their will behind the bars of a convent. I know 
 you to be so brave, so strong that I have not the 
 least doubt with regard to you ; and I beseech you 
 to have the same faith in me." 
 
 " Hush, listen ! " said Marguerite, lifting her 
 head and listening intently. She fancied she had 
 heard the sound of footsteps. She was under the 
 impression that her father was coming after her. 
 Armand noticed that all of a sudden she had 
 turned pale. Margu6rite was not mistaken. By the 
 last faint rays of the sinking sun the two young 
 people suddenly saw a huge shadow close to them. 
 
l88 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 Marguerite checked a cry of terror, while Armand 
 started to his feet to protect her. 
 
 " I am sorry to interrupt you," said a sad voice, 
 which the young man immediately recognised. " I 
 •was close to you and have heard everything." 
 
 "It is Jean Torquenie," whispered Armand to 
 Margu6rite. " Don't be afraid." 
 
 " Monsieur d'Arcay, and you, Mademoiselle," the 
 erstwhile convict went on, " I can understand your 
 cursing the. wretched man who stands between you 
 and your happiness. I am the cause of all your 
 suffering. Why, great Heaven, should the innocent 
 have to pay in this way for the guilty ? ... If it 
 were not for my daughter " 
 
 He stopped all at once and gulped down a sob. 
 •' Mademoiselle, when just now I heard you pity 
 your own hard fate, I could not help crying myself. 
 But I, also, have a daughter, and you will under- 
 stand that I do not wish her to look upon me for 
 ever as a convict whom everyone has the right to 
 spurn, to despise. I give you my word that if I 
 stood alone in the world, I should show myself as 
 generous as you. Monsieur Armand. I would dis- 
 appear, and no one would ever hear of me again." 
 
 " You must be reinstated in public opinion, Tor- 
 queni6," said Armand in a firm voice ; " and even 
 if you stood alone in the world, you ought not 
 to relinquish your right to fling its justice in the 
 face of society which has condemned you." 
 
 " Ah, Monsieur, how good and kind you are, and 
 what a lesson of courage you are teaching me," 
 said Torqueni6 in a tone of admiration and grati- 
 tude. " What can I do to repay you ? Look here, 
 I would willingly give up my life to you.'' 
 
 " My father — here comes my father, Armand,*' 
 said all of a sudden Marguerite de Tremeillan, whose 
 uneasy glances had been constantly scanning thf 
 dense clusters of foliage, gradually becoming mor« 
 indistinct in the gathering shadows of night. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. iSg 
 
 From the moment she had come to Mesnil she 
 had had a ioreboding that her father would suddenly 
 come upon her. She expected every moment to see 
 him stand in front of her, and a feeling of unutterable 
 anguish almost choked her. 
 
 The foreboding was being realized. A man was 
 quickly walking down one of the avenues, probably 
 coming towards Torqueni6, who had remained 
 standing, and whom consequently he could see in the 
 fast gathering semi-darkness of the garden. 
 
 Margu6rite had not been slow to recognise Count 
 de Tremeillan, but Armand's usual composure and 
 presence of mind did not forsake him at the critical 
 moment. 
 
 "Go, Marguerite," he exclaimed, hurriedly; 
 "Torquenie will take you back to ' d'Albrays' : I 
 entrust her to you," he added, pushing the erstwhile 
 convict towards the young girl. "If you are really 
 devoted to us this is the moment to show it." 
 
 Jean Torqueni6, supporting Marguerite, who was 
 almost fainting with fright, immediately disappeared 
 behind a large clump of trees. 
 
 Armand remained standing at the spot just 
 vacated by Torquenie, and waited in a very deter- 
 mined attitude for Count de Tr6meillan, who was 
 quickly striding towards him. 
 
 ■ CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 When he got to within a few steps of where 
 Armand stood. Count de Tremeillan stopped. " I 
 wish to see Monsieur d'Arcay," he said in a voice 
 which sounded even more abrupt than usual, seeing 
 that his quick walk had evidently out him out of 
 
190 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 breath. " Go and tell him at once that Monsieur de 
 Tremeillan is waiting for him here," he added. 
 
 " I am ready to hear what you have got to say, 
 Monsieur le Comte," said Armand, advancing a 
 step towards him. 
 
 Monsieur de Tr6meillan drew back in surprise. 
 He was no doubt under the impression that he was 
 speaking to one of the Mesnil servants ; he certainly 
 did not expect to find himself face to face with 
 Armand. Nevertheless he remained perfectly self- 
 possessed. 
 
 " I wish to speak to you, Monsieur," he said, 
 •' and I am glad to find you here. What I have to 
 say is a matter between ourselves only." 
 
 " I am at your disposal, Monsieur," replied 
 Armand, pointing to the seat just vacated by 
 Marguerite. 
 
 "Monsieur," began the Count, "you no doubt 
 guess what brings me here. I went to see the 
 Abb6 Dubois to-day. On my way back from 
 Bonnieres I called at the house of a woman you 
 know, and I was told that you had just left in com- 
 pany with two magistrates. You are apparently 
 decided," he went on after a short pause, "to carry 
 this wretched business to the bitter end. You 
 neither respect the dead nor those who from their 
 position have a right to be considered. You are 
 bent upon disgracing me. Monsieur." 
 
 " I am bent upon getting justice for those whom 
 you have disgraced. Monsieur ; that is all I am bent 
 upon. Monsieur le Comte. But what is the use of 
 harping upon this ? You are aware that nothing 
 will alter my resolution." 
 
 " I know it. I also know what you have done, 
 and the means by which you have wrung those 
 statements from that wretched woman. I admit 
 your skill. You have succeeded in getting the 
 better of a devotion of thirty years standing, in 
 frightening an old woman on the brink of the grave. 
 
A VILLAGE t>RtEST. igt 
 
 and in inducing her to betray her master. You 
 ought to feel proVid of yourself." 
 
 " Your sneers will not have the slightest effect on 
 me, Monsieur. The means to which I had recourse 
 to accomplish my end are those that may be frankly 
 acknowledged by any honest man. I have been 
 fortunate enough to get your accomplice to speak 
 before two magistrates, who have noted down the 
 whole of her statement. 1 congratulate myself on 
 this result, which is singularly calculated to bring 
 this sad affair to a speedy end." 
 
 " Do not halloa before you are out of the wood, 
 Monsieur," said Count de Tr6meillan in a threaten- 
 ing tone. " You think you have me at your gun's 
 muzzle like an old boar at bay. Take care. The 
 shot you are about to fire may wound, nay kill, 
 someone else." 
 
 Armand shuddered. He understood that the 
 Count was alluding to Marguerite. But what was 
 he driving at ? 
 
 " Mademoiselle Tr6meillan" — he began in a less 
 determined tone. 
 
 " Mademoiselle Tr6meillan is dying, Monsieur," 
 said the Count with great stress. " She is dying. 
 Monsieur, and if she succumbs to the grief that 
 is consuming her, you may pride yourself upon 
 having killed her." 
 
 Armand drew a deep sigh of relief. The Count 
 was not aware of Marguerite's absence. . He had 
 no doubt been away from " d'Albrays " part of the 
 day. It was evident that he was playing his last 
 trump in trying to make the young fellow believe 
 that the trial would aim a fatal blow at the woman 
 he loved. 
 
 This clumsy and cruel ruse filled Armand with a 
 feeling of revolt. 
 
 "You he. Monsieur le Comte," he exclaimed 
 fiercp-ly. " There is not the least danger to 
 Madamoiselle de Tremeillan's life. She is no doubt 
 
1Q2 A VILLAGE PRIEST* 
 
 painfully affected by the situation that has made 
 you and me mortal enemies. But she knows that she 
 may place faith in me ; that I love her, and that, 
 whatever happens, she will be my wife. You mean 
 to frighten me, to make me relinquish the proceed- 
 ings I am going to institute against you. But you 
 are mistaken, for I happen to know the truth ; yes, 
 I know everything that is going on at ' d'Albrays,' 
 in spite of your bars and locks, and I know that at 
 this moment you are telling me an abominable lie." 
 
 This violent sally seemed to disconcert Count de 
 Tremeillan, who had counted on the effect of this 
 revelation. He started abruptly to his feet, took off 
 his hat, and gasped for breath. 
 
 In short, conquered by Armand's energetic deter- 
 mination and finding it useless to continue the 
 struggle in the face of the latter's calm and cool 
 resolution, he dropped heavily on to the seat and 
 held down his head. But for the fast gathering 
 darkness around, Armand might have seen the 
 deep ravages on the Count's face, produced by the 
 late events. He was very pale, his eyes were 
 swollen with want of sleep, and the erstwhile 
 haughty and imperious look had made room for a 
 vague, sombre stare. 
 
 " What is to be the upshot of all this according to 
 you, I should like to know ? " he said trying to adopt 
 a resolute tone, which was, however, belied by the 
 trembling voice. 
 
 " I ask you once more, Monsieur le Comte, to 
 relinquish your intention of being represented at the 
 forthcoming trial, to leave the country for some time. 
 In trying to defend yourself, you will only draw 
 greater attention to the affair." 
 
 " You are still harping upon the same thing;" 
 said the Count in an angry tone. " And this is all 
 )0u have to say to me, Monsieur ? You still 
 presume to give me the advice I rejected with con- 
 tempt. Do you think I shall abandon my defence 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 1 93 
 
 when I have got such magnificent grounds to go 
 upon. Do you think I am going to let a barrister wag 
 his tongue at me when I have the means of confounding 
 my accusers? No, Monsieur, a thousand times no. 
 You want to carry this through. Very well, so be it 
 then ; and we shall see who will get the worst of this 
 affair." 
 
 " Monsieur, a week hence you will be served with a 
 subpoena." They were the last words Armand addressed 
 to Count de Trdmeillan until the day they stood facing 
 one another in the Assize Courts. 
 
 For some time after the Count had left Armand 
 remained in the garden, awaiting Jean Torquenie's 
 return. 
 
 At last he came, out of breath, for he guessed that 
 the young fellow was terribly anxious. He had run 
 all the way from " d'Albrays " to Mesnil. 
 
 " Mademoiselle de Tr^meillan is all right," he 
 said the moment he got close to Armand. " I went 
 to the front door by myself. I rang the bell and 
 asked for charity. I took care to make a good deal 
 of noise to draw the attention of the servants. Mean- 
 while she managed to slip in unperceived by the back 
 door." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 A FEW weeks later Andrd Gerard received from his 
 friend Armand d'Arcay the following letter : — 
 
 "My dear Andrd, — I am going through the sorest 
 trial that can befall a man in life. I stand very much in 
 need of your affection ; come to me for a few days, 
 for I am alone, and have to spend many hours in 
 deep sorrow. The trial commenced on the 9th 
 October. I succeeded in concealing, for a long while, 
 
194 * VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 from my mother the sad events that are impending. 
 But I was unable to afford a plausible explanation 
 of the postponement of my marriage, and of the 
 cessation of our intercourse with Monsieur de 
 Tremeillan and his daughter. Moreover, I foresaw 
 that this trial would cause a great sensation in the 
 neighbourhood, and did not wish her to be informed 
 of it by public rumour. So I told her everything, 
 except the facts relating to my father and my 
 personal efforts to obtain the reinstatement of Jean 
 Torqueni6. She remains in absolute ignorance of 
 the important part I played in all this. You will 
 come soon, will you not ? It will be an act of kind- 
 ness to come to me at this sad moment; your 
 cheerfulness, your courage will do me good. Believe 
 me, yours very affectionately, Armand d'Arcay." 
 
 Immediately on receipt of this letter, Andr6 
 Gerard turned the picture upon which he was 
 engaged to the wall, packed his modest portmanteau 
 and took train for Rennes, where he arrived next day 
 at twelve. Armand was in a very sad and low- 
 spirited condition. The young men spent the day 
 together. Armand told his friend all the particulars 
 of the latter events. 
 
 " The attitude of Count de Tremeillan is really 
 despicable," he wound up. " Considering the haughty 
 and defiant way in which he took things, I expected 
 that he would boldly defend himself, that he would 
 openly accept the responsibility of the murder of 
 Viscount de Mortr6e and contend that this crime 
 was the just vengeance of an outraged husband. 
 Not at all. I was afraid of his temper, of his 
 violence ; my great fear was the disgrace to the 
 memory of the defunct Countess likely to result 
 from the sensational nature of the affair. He himself 
 pleaded in that sense in order to prevent the trial of 
 which I had taken the initiative. But the moment 
 hostilities commenced seriously he beat a retreat, 
 which I can only qualify as contemptible. I told 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. I95 
 
 you that his accomplice confessed under the influence 
 of a kind of superstitious terror, and because her 
 mind was unhinged by the news of the death of her 
 master, wliich I abruptly told her. But when she 
 found that I had deceived her, she endeavoured to 
 retract her first statement. 
 
 " Interrogated by the examining magistrate, pur- 
 suant to the order granting the petition of a new 
 trial to Jean Torquenie, she told a new version of 
 the murder of Monsieur de Mortree. She main- 
 tained that all she had told us on the occasion of 
 our first visit was false, that she was suffering from 
 fever and delirious, and that she did not remember 
 even what she had said. It is very evident that the 
 woman literally repeats the lesson prompted to her 
 by the Count de Tremeillan. She takes the whole 
 responsibility of the crime. She knew that Mon- 
 sieur de Mortree was her master's deadly enemy ; 
 she had seen the latter prowl about " d'Albrays," 
 and she fancied that the young man had designs 
 upon either the life or the honour of Count de 
 Tremeillan, consequently made up her mind to kill 
 him. 
 
 " After this she gives still another version of 
 the crime. She pretends that she saw Viscount 
 de Mortree in a cutting near the house, and that she 
 fired a first shot at him with the carabine she had 
 purloined from Jean Torquenie's. Monsieur de 
 Mortree, who was unarmed, took flight immediately, 
 under the impression that he was being attacked by 
 some highway robber. He flung off his coat, which 
 hampered his movements. Thereupon she lay in 
 wait for him in the dense undergrowth. She loaded 
 her carabine once more and killed him as he came by. 
 
 "Count de Tr6meillan has also been examined. 
 It would appear that he had thoroughly recovered 
 his presence of mind, and was more arrogant than 
 ever. He knew, no doubt, that he could depend on 
 
IgS A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 " He indignantly denied having had any share in 
 the murder of Monsieur de Mortree. They read 
 la Terreuse's statement over to him. He replied 
 that the poor woman had been afflicted with strange 
 delusions all her life ; that at certain moments she 
 seemed completely out of her mind. 
 
 J' That's how he explained la Terreuse's senseless 
 crime of having killed Monsieur de Mortree without 
 the slightest motive, and of her having subsequently, 
 and in a moment of delirium, told the ridiculous 
 and improbable story noted down by the magistrates 
 and myself. 
 
 " After this you will understand the difficulties 
 with which the authorities had to contend. After a 
 score of years there is not much chance of either 
 collecting proofs or witnesses. The sole basis for 
 the revision of Jean Torquenie's trial was the state- 
 ment of la Terreuse, who confessed herself guilty of 
 the murder. 
 
 " We had no choice but to take her word, and seeing 
 that she declared having conceived and executed the 
 plan by herself, it was almoFt impossible to prove 
 that she told a lie. The principal point as far as 
 the judges were concerned was to make certain that 
 Jean Torquenie was innocent, and according to both 
 statements of la Terreuse the fact was patent. The 
 question of the Count de Tremeillan's, complicity in 
 the murder was only a secondary one. 
 
 " Only three men know the whole of the truth and 
 might have revealed it — the Abb6 Dubois, Monsieur 
 Rousseau, and I. But I knew that we might trust 
 to the generous feeling of the barrister, to the 
 discretion of the priest. The sole wish of both was 
 to see the innocence of Jean Torquenie fully 
 established. 
 
 "That is hov/ things stand, friend Andre. La 
 Terreuse will be convicted and the chief miscreant 
 will once more go scot-free." 
 
 " Really, my dear Armand, I fail to see why you 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 197 
 
 should grieve so much about all this. Nay, it seems 
 to me that, as far as Mademoiselle de Tremeillan 
 and you are concerned, it is the best thing that 
 could happen." 
 
 " The man is an ignoble coward." 
 
 " What does it matter to you seeing that he is not 
 ' the father of his daughter ' ? " 
 
 " You are right, and between you and me it is my 
 only comfort," repHed Armand with a sad smile. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 The gth October was ushered in by dull, drizzly 
 weather, of the kind so frequently met with under the 
 skies of Brittany. The Rennes Court of Assizes -v^as 
 wrapt in that semi-darkness, conveying the sad 
 impression one generally associates with the dimly 
 lighted nave of a small church. The fine small rain 
 beat incessantly against the tall pointed stained- 
 glass windows. The monotonous and dismal sound 
 proved a fitting accompaniment to the droning voice 
 of the President, who was examining the prisoner 
 and the witnesses. 
 
 Through the kind of grey mist that hung like a 
 pall over the huge room, one caught a glimpse of a 
 picture of Christ on the Cross, blackened with age, of 
 three red spots — the judges' gowns, and of a double 
 row of puzzled but attentive faces to the left — the 
 jury. To the right a dark and attenuated form 
 standing upright between two drowsy gendarmes, 
 their hands crossed on the hilts of their swords. 
 
 It was la Terreuse. 
 
 On the wooden form set apart for the witnesses, a 
 few aged peasants, contemporaries of the first drama, 
 the' ilivimijiim.pm.t r\f ^xrhirh Viarl hpen p.nacted in the same 
 
198 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 room. At one end of the seat, Jean Torquenid, 
 grave and composed, and glancing in turns at the 
 magistrates, at the jury, at the picture from which 
 the pale figure of the Saviour stands out in relief; 
 Jean Torqueni^, who seems to review as if in a 
 dream the events of that horrible day when he sat in 
 that seat of shame, a prey to the most excruciating 
 agony. 
 
 A little further on, the Count de Trdmeillan in an 
 arm-chair, courteously reserved for him by the presiding 
 judge; Count de Trdmeillan looking as stern and 
 haughty as ever, carefully " got up," his elegantly-gloved 
 hands leaning on the golden knob of his walking-stick. 
 Not the slightest trace of the emotion boiling within 
 on his stony face, which is deliberately averted from 
 la Terreuse's. He has been subpoenaed as a wit- 
 ness. 
 
 . In the enclosure reserved for the bar, the counsel 
 for the defence — Maitre des Valliferes, well known in the 
 profession, and a staunch adherent of Church and 
 State, consequently the legal adviser of the landed 
 aristocracy and gentry in those parts. He has been 
 retained for the defence by no less a personage than 
 Count de TrtSmeillan himself. Close to him Maitre 
 Rousseau, bent with age and sickness, but whose eyes 
 dart flashes now and again at certain incidents in the 
 proceedings. 
 
 In addition to these, a few stagiaires (probationers),* 
 and among them Armand d'Arcay, looking pale and 
 sad. 
 
 The proceedings are remarkably brief. It looks as if 
 everyone concerned, judges, witnesses and counsel, are 
 anxious to get the matter over 
 
 The Court had been opened earlier than usual. 
 Great care had been taken to avoid the sensational 
 
 * Barristers of less than three years' standing who are allowed 
 to plead, but who have not been formally admitted into the Cof 
 poration. — TRANSLATOR. 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. I99 
 
 rumours generally attendant upon criminal cases. 
 The presiding judge had come to an understanding to 
 this effect with the Prefect of the Department, 
 who held undisputed sway over the local press, 
 composed of two or three semi-official papers, crawling 
 in the dust before the representative of the Imperial 
 Government. 
 
 "The authorities wished the whole affair to be 
 "got through" quickly, "decently," and were 
 anxious that this reparation for a judiciary error 
 should take place, as it were, with "closed doors." 
 Hence the Court was but sparsely tenanted. A few 
 peasants and as many idlers of the working classes 
 were dozing away in the corners against the dark 
 wainscotting. 
 
 The examination of la Terreuse — the most im- 
 portant part of the trial, seeing that both the accusa- 
 tion and the exculpation of Jean Torquenie were 
 based upon her evidence — the examination of 
 la Terreuse was hurried through by the presiding 
 judge. 
 
 When she was told to stand up in order to answer 
 the questions that were going to be put to her, it 
 looked as if she would be unable to bear the fatigue 
 of her examination and of the trial to the end. The 
 voice issued low and trembling from beneath the 
 black hood that partly hid her face. The judge 
 told her to sit down and to pull back her hood. 
 She complied slowly, and when her head was ex- 
 posed to view the shifty and frightened eyes glanced 
 restlessly at those around her, until they met those 
 of Count de Trdmeillan significantly fixed on hers. 
 She shuddered visibly, and gently bent her head 
 in token of submission, her black and withered 
 hands clutched at the top of the dock, and 
 her voice grew louder and more distinct. 
 Monsieur Rousseau and Armand d'Arcay, who 
 were the only ones that knew the particulars of this 
 ^rama, could not help admiring the rare intelli- 
 
20O A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 gence, the wonderful presence of tnind shown by 
 la Terreuse under the present circumstances. 
 
 She began by asking pardon of God and her 
 master for having offended them. Yes, she had 
 been very guilty. There seemed to be days in her 
 life when the evil spirit took possession of her and 
 goaded her into doing wicked deeds. 
 
 Then she told the judges how she had been led to 
 kill Viscount de Mortr6e. She had, as it were, 
 obeyed an inner voice, which reminded her day 
 and night that if she did not kill that young man 
 some terrible harm would befall her kind master. 
 After this she recounted the precautions she had 
 taken to shift the crime on to Jean Torquenie's 
 shoulders, and in a lower tone than she had adopted 
 hitherto, admitted having poisoned Marianne be- 
 cause she was under the impression that the 
 Torqueni6 woman had seen her take the carabine 
 from the cupboard. 
 
 When she got thus far she kept silent for a 
 moment or so, apparently lost in meditation, for 
 when she resumed her narrative she clasped her 
 hands as if in prayer, bent her head, and once 
 more beseeched her master to pardon her for having 
 gravely offended him. 
 
 In the same tone of humility, she stated that, 
 racked with remorse and feeling her end to be near, 
 she had asked kind Monsieur d'Arcay, the intended 
 husband of her young mistress, to bring two 
 magistrates in order to confide an important secret 
 to them. She had assuredly made up her mind to 
 tell them everything and to confess her crimes. But 
 when she found herself in their presence she had 
 lost her head, the evil spirit had taken possession of 
 her once more and made her say things which she 
 regretted with all her heart. She had accused her 
 kind master, and her kind mistress who was a saint. 
 She was a debased wretch who deserved no pity. 
 Saying which she began to sob violently which 
 
A Village priest. 201 
 
 incident produced a deep impression on the 
 audience. 
 
 Count de Tremeillan remained perfectly unmoved, 
 and when his turn came to give his evidence, he rose 
 slowly from his seat, carefully took off his gloves 
 and placed them in his hat in front of him. Every 
 one of his movements was calm and collected ; he 
 was evidently straining every nerve to remain 
 within the part he had set himself. 
 
 His evidence was to the effect that, like every one 
 in the neighbourhood, he was aware of the profound 
 hatred towards him of Viscount de Mortree, a hatred 
 that had been bequeathed to the young fellow by 
 his father. Still, he did not think for one moment 
 that this family feud would have ever prompted 
 Viscount MarceUinto commit a criminal act towards 
 him. La Terreuse had been carried away by her 
 zeal, by her fanatical devotion. It was an open 
 secret that the woman suffered from periodica] 
 attacks of madness. In years gone by she had had 
 her head laid open by a sabre cut in the Vendee, 
 and since then she had not always been right in her 
 mind. 
 
 In a deeply moved voice the Count besought the 
 mercy of the jury for this old servant of his family. 
 As for himself he freely forgave her the odious 
 fabrication with which her own fear had inspired 
 her. 
 
 " Though I have always led a somewhat retired 
 life," he said, " I am sufficiently well known in the 
 neighbourhood, and so is my family. People know 
 the character of the dear and saint-like creature I 
 lost, and whose death afflicted me to an extent such as 
 to defy all consolation even up to the present. I do 
 not think it necessary to prove that the woman told 
 a falsehood when she made that horrible accusation 
 against her unfortunate mistress and myself." 
 
202 A VILLAGE PRIEST. 
 
 moment and remained silent. The President told 
 him to wait for a httle while until he was more 
 composed, and pointed out to him that the pro- 
 secution had paid no attention to this cruel and 
 mendacious statement, which, moreover, the prisoner 
 herself had declared to be false in all her subse- 
 quent depositions, and for which she publicly asked 
 pardon. 
 
 Then came Jean Torquenie's turn to be examined, 
 and though the President endeavoured to show himself 
 as impartial with regard to him as he had been with 
 regard to the other witnesses, one could not help 
 noticing a kind of sharpness in the questions he put to 
 the erstwhile gamekeeper. 
 
 The man was evidently looked upon as an 
 ill-advised nuisance who had taken it into his head 
 to impair the prestige of the magistracy by showing 
 that, like every human institution, the latter is also 
 subject to error, and liable to be influenced unfairly by 
 passion. 
 
 Jean Torquenid, very calm and grave, recapitu- 
 lated the old facts. Not the slightest complaint 
 came from his lips ; he neither accused the ex- 
 amining magistrate who had wrung his confession 
 from him by torturing him, nor the President who 
 had insulted him. He felt that the moment of 
 reparation had come, and generously pardoned every- 
 one. 
 
 He only showed that he was innocent, and that 
 poor Marianne had been the victim of an infamous 
 charge. She was a good and saint-like woman, he said 
 finally, and with a deep sigh. After which he returned 
 to his seat. 
 
 A few unimportant witnesses gave their evidence. 
 
 At last the Public Prosecutor rose to address the 
 jury. 
 
 He strictly adhered to the final version of la 
 Terreuse. His speech was short. Confronted as 
 they were with the confession of la Terreuse on all 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 203 
 
 points, the Court should neither hesitate nor delay- 
 with_ regard to the verdict that was to reinstate in 
 public opinion an innocent man. The case was 
 diflferent with regard to the sentence of la Terreuse. 
 Twenty years ago he would have deliberately 
 demanded the supreme penalty of the law for this 
 miseiable, wretched creature guilty of t\yo crimes. 
 But to-day they were dealing with an old woman 
 nearly eighty, who probably had but a few days to live 
 before appearing before the judgment seat of the 
 Almighty, whose everlasting decision would annul 
 that delivered by mankind. He admitted that she 
 was deserving of some commiseration, and he would, 
 therefore, leave her to the wisdom and the equityof 
 the jury. 
 
 After this very moderate speech and utterly unlike 
 the impassioned words hurled at Jean Torquenie, 
 twenty years previously by the Public Prosecutor, the 
 task of the counsel for the defence was comparatively 
 easy. 
 
 He simply pleaded madness, fanatical madness. 
 He represented this poor, untutored, uncultivated 
 woman as having been led astray by her fanatical 
 devotion to her master, as having made herself the 
 executrix of a vendetta on the representative of a 
 family at feud with that of the de Tremeillans. 
 He implored the jury to be merciful. " Heaven 
 alone knows what she must have suffered during 
 these twenty yeats, how her heart must have 
 been racked with remorse, her sleep haunted by 
 horrible dreams. , She became guilty because 
 she loved her master, a rare attachment now-a-days. 
 This invulnerable devotion, bequeathed to her like 
 a tradition by her own kind who had been the 
 servitors of the de Tremeillans for four hundred 
 years, made a fanatic of her. She became a criminal 
 in a moment of madness. But on the other hand 
 we have a whole life of exemplary piety, and the 
 
264 A VILLAGE PEIESTT. 
 
 years since a poor orphan lad and brought him up to the 
 best of her abilities." 
 
 About three the jury returned Iheir verdict. 
 
 Anne Jouannette Poriquet, otherwise la Terreuse, was 
 sentenced to ten years' solitary confinement. 
 
 She did not as much as budge on hearing her doom. 
 
 Beneath her ample black hood she stood motionless like 
 
 a statue. The gendarmes led her away, while Monsieur 
 
 de Trdmeillan, leaning back in his arm-chair in an 
 
 indifferent attitude, did not even turn round to have a 
 
 last look at her. 
 
 * ♦ * * ♦ 
 
 A few days later la Terreuse was found dead in 
 prison. She sat huddled up in a corner of her cell, her 
 ample black cloak wrapt round her, her rigid hands 
 tightly holding against her lips a rosary and a scapulary 
 which she had worn during her campaign in La 
 Vendue. 
 
 Monsieur de Tr^meillan did not survive her very long. 
 After the trial he went to Austria, on the pretext of pre- 
 senting his daughter to the Count de Chambord, in 
 reality to escape from the threats of Armand d'Arcay, 
 who had warned him that, unless he consented to his 
 marriage with Marguerite, he would use against him 
 the weapons found among the documents of Maitre 
 Rousseau. 
 
 The Count de Tr^meillan was determined to 
 remain away all his life rather than consent to such a 
 union. 
 
 But during a shooting party in company with two of 
 the secretaries of the Count de Chambord he had a 
 nasty fall and broke his leg. The accident did not 
 appear serious ; a long spell of rest seemed all that w&s 
 required. The fracture was, however, more complicated 
 than they supposed at first, the flesh was severely 
 injured. In a few days gangrene set in and an amputa- 
 tion became necessary. 
 
 A similar operation at the Count's time of life was 
 attended with considerable danger. In fact, there 
 
A VILLAGE PRIEST. 205 
 
 was a great loss of blood ; a violent fever super- 
 vened, during which he had terrible fits of delirium. 
 
 He lingered for a fortnight, then died amidst horri- 
 ble suffering. 
 
 Poor Margu6rite returned to France and shut 
 herself up at " d'Albrays," with no other company 
 than that of an aged relative, for whom she had 
 sent. 
 
 The death of her father was not Hkely to affect 
 her very deeply. But all these events had under- 
 mined her health, and thorough rest became abso- 
 lutely necessary. 
 
 She never went beyond the confines of her own 
 park. Her longest walk was to the gamekeeper's 
 lodge, where, at her express wish, Jean Torqueni^ 
 and his daughter had taken up their quarters. 
 
 Armand and his mother paid her constant visits. 
 The past was never mentioned, all their thoughts 
 dwelt upon the future. 
 
 Finally, at the expiration of a twelvemonth, the 
 Abbe Dubois united the young people in the chapel 
 of " d'Albrays." 
 
 The marriage took place at midnight, before the 
 altar, flooded with light and smothered in flowers. 
 The witnesses to the marriage were Andre Gerard 
 and Jean Torauenie. 
 
 THE END 
 
# _ « 
 
 List of Volumes 
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 I ALIETTE (La Morte). By Octave Feuillet. 
 
 z. EDM^E (Les Dames de Croix-Mort). By Georges Ohnet. 
 
 3. IRENE. By the Princess Olga Cantacuz^ne-Altieri. 
 
 4. HfiL^NE (Madame Villef^ran Jeune) By L4on de Tinseau, 
 
 5. HARLETTE. By the Countess « * ' 
 
 6. ZYTE. By Hector Malot. 
 
 7. COUSIN PONS. By Honors Balzac. 
 
 8. THE IRONMASTER. By Georges Ohnet. 
 g. A VILLAGE PRIEST. By Henri Cauvain. 
 
Cocoa in Perfection. 
 
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