‘You might have spoken to me of those people these three months past,’ said the priest at last.  ’I should have known at any rate what sort of people I was going to call upon.’

La Teuse stopped short as if her legs had just broken.

‘Don’t tell falsehoods, Monsieur le Cure,’ she stuttered, ’don’t tell them; you will only make your sin still worse.  How dare you say I haven’t spoken to you of the Philosopher, that heathen who is the scandal of the whole neighbourhood?  The truth is, you never listen to me when I talk.  It all goes in at one ear and out at the other.  Ah, if you did listen to me, you’d spare yourself a good deal of trouble!’

‘I, too, have spoken to you about those abominations,’ affirmed the Brother.

Abbe Mouret lightly shrugged his shoulders.  ’Well, I didn’t remember it,’ he said.  It was only when I found myself at the Paradou that I fancied I recollected certain tales.  Besides, I should have gone to that unhappy man all the same as I thought him in danger of death.’

Brother Archangias, his mouth full, struck the table violently with his knife, and roared:  ‘Jeanbernat is a dog; he ought to die like a dog.’  Then seeing the priest about to protest he cut him short:  ’No, no, for him there is no God, no penitence, no mercy.  It would be better to throw the host to the pigs than carry it to that scoundrel.’

Then he helped himself to more potatoes, and with his elbows on the table, his chin in his plate, began chewing furiously.  La Teuse, her lips pinched, quite white with anger, contented herself with saying dryly:  ’Let it be, his reverence will have his own way.  He has secrets from us now.’

Silence reigned.  For a moment one only heard the working of Brother Archangias’s jaws, and the extraordinary rumbling of his gullet.  Desiree, with her bare arms round the nest in her plate, smiled to the little ones, talking to them slowly and softly in a chirruping of her own which they seemed to understand.

‘People say what they have done when they have nothing to hide,’ suddenly cried La Teuse.

And then silence reigned again.  What exasperated the old servant was the mystery the priest seemed to make about his visit to the Paradou.  She deemed herself a woman who had been shamefully deceived.  Her curiosity smarted.  She again walked round the table, not looking at the Abbe, not addressing anybody, but comforting herself with soliloquy.

’That’s it; that’s why we have lunch so late!  We go gadding about till two o’clock in the afternoon.  We go into such disreputable houses that we don’t even dare to tell what we’ve done.  And then we tell lies, we deceive everybody.’

‘But nobody,’ gently interrupted Abbe Mouret, who was forcing himself to eat a little more, so as to prevent La Teuse from getting crosser than ever, ’nobody asked me if I had been to the Paradou.  I have not had to tell any lies.’