‘Is this _possible_?’ I said, in a tone of the greatest amazement. ‘Tessie! she must have gone out of her mind. She cannot know what she is saying!’ But this insinuation only stimulated Madame Fromard to make her meaning plainer. ‘_Possible!_’ she screamed, ‘is it possible that Monsieur le Curé owes money all over St. Pucelle and Rille—that there is not a tradesman who has not his name down for a larger sum than he will ever pay whilst living, and that when he dies they will swoop down upon his carcass like birds of prey, to see which can tear it to pieces first! _Bon Dieu!_ Mamselle is not so foolish as she would make herself to be! She _must_ know that if it were not for the Prince Francius von Ritzburg, Monsieur le Curé would have been in prison years ago, and that it is only because of his holy profession he is allowed to walk free about the streets of St. Pucelle! But the day will come—the day will come when my poor Guillaume shall be avenged of his death!’ We could do the raving woman no good, and Tessie was crying so bitterly by this time, that I drew her quickly out of the cottage, and led her to a secluded part of the encircling country where she could sit down and weep in privacy. I did not know what to say to her. If this horrid story were untrue, why did she not deny it—why did she sit there with her face buried in her hands and cry as if her heart would break? And if it were _true_, as I too much feared it must be, what comfort could I give her? For I felt that I would rather have died myself than have heard such words spoken of _my_ father, and been unable to refute them. I sat by her side in silence, waiting until she should speak to me. The first words she said were confirmatory of my fears. ‘Don’t tell Ange of this—pray don’t tell her, Hilda! She knows nothing of it all. It would break her heart!’ ‘It is true then, Tessie?’ She did not answer me except by another convulsive sob. ‘I don’t think it is all his fault,’ she said presently; ‘we have been so very poor, you see, and debts accumulate so fast, it seems impossible to gain ground again when once you have lost it. And I know that his liabilities have weighed heavily upon poor papa’s mind, this one to poor Guillaume especially. We have always been friendly with them, and had our eggs of them for that reason, but what could papa do? Five hundred and fifty francs! it is a positive fortune. We shall never be able to pay it!’ ‘Meanwhile they starve,’ I said bitterly. ‘Oh, Hilda! don’t be hard. You don’t know how terribly I feel it. The Prince has been very kind to us, and sometimes I have thought I would beg my way to the Court and tell him all about it, and see if he would help us to pay off papa’s debts.’ ‘It would be of no use, Tessie. When men have once got into the habit of debt and learned to look upon it with indifference, they are past cure. He would only start clear, to get into debt again.’