Madeleine was the Silvia of Ruffec. She went faithfully to Mass, and what she believed to be proper, that unobtrusively she endeavoured to do. She spoke ill of no one. Her exquisite pink-and-white complexion, her raven hair, her steady grey eyes, were three great several beauties. Add that her features were regular, her teeth most white, and her figure graceful, when you will understand that the swains of Ruffec commended her with cause. As I have said already, Madeleine’s judgment also was unusually sound. To ram home my comparison, it was, I think, the light in her wonderful eyes which you forgot last of her comeliness, while the flowers she was constantly receiving gave her actual distress. She never would wear them. No other girl in Ruffec received any flowers. When, therefore, Madeleine Peyre, the Silvia of Ruffec, married the wrong man, the town pulled her down from her pedestal and let her lie. It is the way of the world. The announcement of the betrothal aroused consternation. People were amazed—staggered. You could have knocked them down. That Pierre Lacaze was a brute was common knowledge. They said his first wife had been bullied into her grave. . . . The astonishment was succeeded by sickness of heart. Discussion of the tragedy dissolved into sighs and tears. . . . Finally came Anger. Madeleine Peyre was denounced for an ungrateful fool. Where sighs had been heaved, fingers were wagged and snapped. Ruffec told Ruffec that Mademoiselle Peyre would soon find out her error, and that the discovery would serve her right. People began to gloat upon the disillusionment which was awaiting their darling. Upon the wedding day itself leers were exchanged. . . . It is the way of the world. Had her parents lived, the mistake would not have been made. But they had been killed together, five years before. Madeleine, aged sixteen, had seen no reason why the little creamery they had been keeping should close its aged hatch. As a result, this had remained open ever since. Out of the profits of the little enterprise its girlish governor and her two young brothers had been lodged and fed and clothed decently. Now the brothers were come to men’s estate, while the goodwill of the business was a legacy worth having. Moreover, Jean and Jacques Peyre were no fools. About their future Madeleine felt easy enough. For the matter of that, up to the very last she had no qualms about her own. _Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat._ Every one—her brothers included—disliked Lacaze. The man was so obviously a brute. Madeleine clung to him steadfastly. . . . Then the day came, and the Silvia of Ruffec cast her pearls before swine. Be sure Lacaze rent her. * * * * * Nearly ten months had trailed by, and Madeleine had aged ten years.