lies, nothing but lies. Either he has deceived the poor ladies basely,
or they themselves--but this is what I cannot believe.'

'Dear friend,' he said, 'compose thyself. Have you never discovered yet
how strong is self-delusion? There will be no lying of which they are
aware. Figure to yourself what a stimulus to the imagination to know
that he was here, actually here. Even I--it suggests a hundred things to
me. The Sisters will have said to him (meaning no evil, nay meaning the
edification of the people), "But, Pierre, reflect! You must have seen
this and that. Recall thy recollections a little." And by degrees Pierre
will have found out that he remembered--more than could have been
hoped.'

'_Mon Dieu_!' I cried, out of patience, 'and you know all this, yet you
will not tell them the truth--the very truth.'

'To what good?' he said. Perhaps M. le Curé was right: but, for my part,
had I stood up in that pulpit, I should have contradicted their lies and
given no quarter. This, indeed, was what I did both in my private and
public capacity; but the people, though they loved me, did not believe
me. They said, 'The best men have their prejudices. M. le Maire is an
excellent man; but what will you? He is but human after all.'

M. le Curé and I said no more to each other on this subject. He was a
brave man, yet here perhaps he was not quite brave. And the effect of
Pierre Plastron's revelations in other quarters was to turn the awe that
had been in many minds into mockery and laughter. '_Ma foi_,' said Félix
de Bois-Sombre, 'Monseigneur St. Lambert has bad taste, mon ami Martin,
to choose Pierre Plastron for his confidant when he might have had
thee.' 'M. de Bois-Sombre does ill to laugh,' said my mother (even my