most prominent: but at the time the oddest emotions hustle one another for predominance. Thérèse was puzzled at herself; at the change that seemed to have come over all her feelings since that morning. And then she found herself curiously watching the little procession that went down the stairs,—the curé in his flowing black cassock and his wide beaver hat; M. Deshouliéres and Fabien, so unlike each other; Nannon, with her broad shoulders and her heavily-plaited green gown-it seemed as if all the characters in her little drama were trooping down together. Monsieur Deshouliéres was the victor, who was going away in triumph, but there was not much triumph in his heart just then. At the door they separated.

"Adieu, Thérèse," said Fabien, with his hand on the door of the salle-à-manger.

"Adieu, Fabien."

"If you come to Paris at any time, I hope you will let me know. Do not allow the provinces to engross

you altogether. Or if you have need of anything

"I have need of nothing."

"In that case, au revoir."

He wanted to punish her. His nature was too small to bear the humiliation of allowing himself to be in the wrong. He was in a rage with them all, and he wanted to punish her. He only stung her. And the others had passed out, so that they heard nothing.

CHAPTER XIX.

"And thou, as one that once declined,
When he was little more than boy,
On some unworthy heart with joy,
But lives to wed an equal mind."

-In Memoriam.

MONSIEUR LE CURÉ had his own little mortifications to endure before he got back to his study in the presbytère at Ardron. On his way to the Evêché he encountered the Préfet, who loved a little gossip, and stopped him

at once.

"Is the news which is talked of in the town true? Has Monsieur Moreau's heir actually arrived after all this time?"

"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet," said the curé grimly. “I came to Charville with him for the purpose of ascertaining the meaning of certain suspicious circumstances connected with the will and the trusteeship." .

"What, are you thinking of those ridiculous reports about M. Deshouliéres ?"

"Ridiculous! Permit me to remind you that I have your own letter confirming them."

"Mine! My dear Monsieur le Curé, I must have

been a great fool if I wrote anything so absurd. Ah, bah! I remember. I was irritated with him at one time, I believe he had a mania, and worried me. But-M. Deshouliéres! He is a hero, nothing less. There is to be a meeting to-morrow to discuss some means of making known to him the gratitude of the town. Let me invite you to be present, if you have any misgivings as to M. Deshouliéres."

At the Evêché it was the same. The Abbé laughed in his face. "He nettled me once, I acknowledge, but that was a trifle. I cannot tell you my feelings towards him now. Ask any of the clergy who worked with him in this last terrible three months. A mistake ?- of course it was a mistake. All France has cause to be proud of M. Deshouliéres, Charville most of all. My dear friend, imagine your coming here on such an errand !"

"Monsieur l'Abbé," said the curé sharply, "I only wish you people of Charville would appreciate your heroes a little beforehand."

Poor Thérèse! That day was, probably, the most desolate in her life. Whichever way she looked everything seemed blank and homeless. Something had gone away out of her heart, and at first a great swelling indignation took its place; but this could not last, and she was conscious of a cold void. There are sudden deaths as well as lingering: her love had met with such an end; but all deaths must have their suffering. Al

S

most his first words had done it, and, yet, what had been in them? how was he different from the Fabien of old days? She sat by her window looking out over the gabled roofs at the plain and the far horizon, where sadcoloured clouds were creeping quietly up-with eager eyes that seemed to be searching an answer for the questions that were perplexing her. She was very miserable and sick at heart, but it was not so much with the loss of Fabien, as with the loss of love. It seemed to her as if in spite of the slighting and the coldness, she ought to love him still-and she did not. It was the identical Fabien after all, though she tried to think otherwise. In the old contests with his uncle, the old impatience of control, weak resistance, attempts at self-assertion, there had been the same character, but in those days she had set round it a little glow of her own, and covered up its imperfections until she had forgotten them. She had counted for love what was no more than a mixture of vanity and self-will. Old Moreau might have left Fabien alone in this matter, and he would have thought no more of Thérèse, would have ended by marrying a dot. Or, again, a little hardship and real work would have quickly brought him back from South America. But the old man yearned after his prodigal. He smoothed his way for him, all the time writing fierce unforgiving letters demanding submission and return. Fabien, who soon found out where his good things came from, used to en

joy them comfortably, and mock at the threats which they contradicted. When at last they stopped he was a little uneasy and wrote two letters, but by this time he was receiving a good salary in an office, and there was no great difficulty in being supplied with money, M. Moreau's feelings being pretty well known in Rio. It seems sometimes in this world as if those unloving natures which shut their hearts against the sunshine around them, are suffered to pour out all that they can give, in the very places where they meet with no return. Perhaps that loving without response is at once their punishment and their blessing. Where all to us looks hard and barren rock, there is at least one little stream of water trickling down into the desert with unselfish bounty.

Yes, Fabien was the same-except that his faults and his weakness had in those three years necessarily become more prominent-but Thérèse missed the key to her puzzle, herself. It was she who had changed, while all the time she believed it to be Fabien. She had grown up with disadvantages of education like his own, but the nobler nature recognised a higher standard when it was given, and strained towards it. There was the difference. With all her faults and

her visions of

self-pleasing, she had never been weighted with the vain satisfied contentment which sees nothing better nor more desirable than itself. She was always, although