“Have you been told about Madame de Chermette?” asked Juliette, unable any longer to restrain her craving for a gossip.

“No, I know nothing.”

“Well, well; just imagine.  You have seen her daughter, so womanish and tall, though she is only fifteen, haven’t you?  There is some talk about her getting married next year to that dark young fellow who is always hanging to her mother’s skirts.  People are talking about it with a vengeance.”

“Ah!” muttered Helene, who was not paying the least attention.

Madame Deberle went into particulars, but of a sudden the chant ceased, and the organ-music died away in a moan.  Astounded at the loudness of her own voice breaking upon the stillness which ensued, she lapsed into silence.  A priest made his appearance at this moment in the pulpit.  There was a rustling, and then he spoke.  No, certainly not, Helene would not join that dinner-party.  With her eyes fixed on the priest she pictured to herself the next meeting with Henri, that meeting which for three days she had contemplated with terror; she saw him white with anger, reproaching her for hiding herself, and she dreaded lest she might not display sufficient indifference.  Amidst her dream the priest had disappeared, his thrilling tones merely reaching her in casual sentences:  “No hour could be more ineffable than that when the Virgin, with bent head, answered:  ’I am the handmaiden of the Lord!’”

Yes, she would be brave; all her reason had returned to her.  She would taste the joy of being loved, but would never avow her love, for her heart told her that such an avowal would cost her peace.  And how intensely would she love, without confessing it, gratified by a word, a look from Henri, exchanged at lengthy intervals on the occasion of a chance meeting!  It was a dream that brought her some sense of the infinite.  The church around her became a friend and comforter.  The priest was now exclaiming: 

“The angel vanished and Mary plunged into contemplation of the divine mystery working within her, her heart bathed in sunshine and love.”

“He speaks very well,” whispered Madame Deberle, leaning towards her.  “And he’s quite young, too, scarcely thirty, don’t you think?”

Madame Deberle was affected.  Religion pleased her because the emotions it prompted were in good taste.  To present flowers for the decoration of churches, to have petty dealings with the priests, who were so polite and discreet, to come to church attired in her best and assume an air of worldly patronage towards the God of the poor—­all this had for her special delights; the more so as her husband did not interest himself in religion, and her devotions thus had all the sweetness of forbidden fruit.  Helene looked at her and answered with a nod; her face was ashy white with faintness, while the other’s was lit up by smiles.  There was a stirring of chairs and a rustling of handkerchiefs, as the priest quitted the pulpit with the final adjuration