first place, what is this matter?"

"You know that my daughter Sabine is dying of grief; Monsieur du
Guenic has left her for Madame de Rochefide."

"It is very dreadful, very serious; but you know what our dear Saint
Francois de Sales says on that subject. Remember too how Madame Guyon
complained of the lack of mysticism in the proofs of conjugal love;
she would have been very willing to see her husband with a Madame de
Rochefide."

"Sabine is only too gentle; she is almost too completely a Christian
wife; but she has not the slightest taste for mysticism."

"Poor young woman!" said the abbe, maliciously. "What method will you
take to remedy the evil?"

"I have committed the sin, my dear director, of thinking how to launch
upon Madame de Rochefide a little man, very self-willed and full of
the worst qualities, who will certainly induce her to dismiss my
son-in-law."

"My daughter," replied the abbe, stroking his chin, "we are not now in
the confessional; I am not obliged to make myself your judge. From the
world's point of view, I admit that the result would be decisive--"

"The means seem to me odious," she said.

"Why? No doubt the duty of a Christian woman is to withdraw a sinning
woman from an evil path, rather than push her along it; but when a