"It is possible that her interests also may have suffered by these extraordinary complications."

"Ah-yes-it is possible. My uncle had not too great a love for Thérèse, but he may have had odd fancies at the end, certainly. I am curious to know how he has provided for her."

"Yet I have understood that your disagreement with your uncle originated in your attachment for Mademoiselle Veuillot," said the curé, facing round upon him sharply.

"Precisely," answered Fabien, airily. "There was something of the sort. But then-what will you ?—I wanted amusement, I was young, foolish—the truth was that I could not any longer endure my old uncle's régime in the office. I heard of an opening in Rio Janeiro, and I worked my way out. On the voyage I wished myself back a hundred times, I promise you, but once there, somehow or other, I found myself on my feet-fortune has always favoured me. I was getting weary of it, though, I own, and this news came to me just in time through M. l'Abbé, but it is not a bad place after all. One sees the world, and one is appreciated."

And so M. Fabien rattled on, while the curé looked at him and listened with a growing discontent. Before he went to bed, he found it necessary to repeat to himself all the evidence he had gathered against M. Deshouliéres. There was no denying it; things bore a very dark appearance.

A suspicious trust; an appointment

said to have been kept in the face of his own knowledge to the contrary; letters suppressed; rumours that all was not right; a letter from M. l'Abbé at the Evêché: "M. Deshouliéres is a man well spoken of, but my own opinion of him does not coincide with that of the world." A letter from the Préfet: "I consider this doctor a pestilent, discontented individual, always trying to advance his own schemes. In effect, I doubt him."

"M. le Préfet would certainly not have spoken so strongly without reason," said M. le Curé to himself reassuringly, as he folded up the letter. "After all, one should keep in mind that there are cases in the world when a man's face does not agree with his actions."

M. Deshouliéres went sadly home that night. It was not of his own grey future that he was thinking, nor of the accusations that had been heaped upon him so unexpectedly he almost smiled as he recalled them. He was thinking of Thérèse and of Fabien. Was this man, to whom her heart had gone out, one who would keep it, and treasure it, and cherish it? There was a deep intolerable pain in the question that would come surging up in spite of his efforts to still it. The stars shone out, and a fresh rustling breeze was swaying the stiff sycamores, lights were gleaming from the old houses, the vines on the balconies had changed into dusky masses. The shadowy old sounds and sights were very familiar and sweet to poor Max, but this night they seemed to have lost their power.

CHAPTER XVIII.

"Aimer sans Amour est amer."

THÉRÈSE was waiting for M. Deshouliéres the next morning when he went to Rue St. Servan. He could not tell how she looked; she was eager, troubled, doubtful, all at once. He did not yet know what had happened in the house, but he guessed directly. "Ah, that poor madame!" she said shuddering. "It is too terrible" and then she stopped.

He saw that she had been overwrought. All that night Madame Roulleau had lain on the floor by the child's bed, in a fierce agony of despair, not weeping, but writhing. Once she had looked up with dry, burning eyes, and said to Thérèse hoarsely, "Your lover is come. Do you remember? he told you so once, and I beat him for it. Do you hear that, all of you? I told a lie, and I beat my little Adolphe." There was something so terrible in her voice and in her face, that Thérèse and Nannon shrank in alarm. And this was all that she knew of Fabien. The poor child, in spite of her bravery, could hardly endure these different

emotions that were tearing at her heart. Nothing at the hospital had been so dreadful to witness as the sight of that hard, insupportable agony. And in the midst of it she had been told that Fabien was come.

"Now I shall know. What is it all?" she said, putting out her hand to Max, with an appealing glance that went to his heart. He answered it at once with a kind smile.

"There is good news for you, M. Saint-Martin has come at last."

"So it is true!" Her face changed suddenly, her eyes danced. "I could not believe it when she told me last night; but if you say so, I know it is true."

Yes, those grave blue eyes were true as truth itself. There was a burden to be borne by one, perhaps by both of them, and his work should be to lighten hers.

"You may believe it, indeed. He is come, for I have seen him

"Seen him!"

Such gladness in her face!-such

gladness in her voice!

"And you shall meet him to-day at the Cygne.' Something made her put out her hand to him again. "Ah, what do I not owe you!" she said gratefully. "For what, I should like to know?" he said with a smile. "I was neither the letter nor the ship that brought him back. Allons, it appears to me that all

things considered, it is monsieur the Curé of Ardron

whom

you will have to thank the most." She shook her head without answering.

She was

not deceived. If ever friend was faithful to his friendship, it was this friend. Neither of them spoke for a moment, then Thérèse said slowly

"I shall understand everything better by and by, I think. I fancy there are things which neither of us understand as yet. That poor woman" she added

sighing.

"So the poor little one is dead!"

"It is not that only-I mean that is not the worst," she said in answer to his look. "Her sorrow is so full of remorse, so dreadful to see. I have asked her to hear Père Gaspard, but she will not suffer him even to come into the room. I wonder whether Sister Gabrielle could do anything! I wonder what it is! She accuses herself of such terrible things."

M. Deshouliéres was too generous-hearted to suspect readily, but that night he had been perplexed by thoughts of little Roulleau, suggested in the interview at Maury.

"I must see her husband on business," he said. "Is he with her, or shall I find him in the bureau?"

"Did you not know?" asked Thérèse in surprise. "He is not here at all. He actually went away again at once when he heard of the fever being in the house. The little coward!"