One evening, when it was blowing and raining outside, a wood fire was flaming in the salon at La Marinière. For herself, Anne would not have cared for it; but the old Curé sat and warmed his hands after dining with her and playing a game of tric-trac. Not indeed to please and distract her, but himself; for he had long been accustomed to depend on her for comfort in all his troubles. After the game was over he had told her a piece of news; nothing that mattered very much, or that was very surprising, characters and circumstances considered; but Anne took it hardly. "I cannot believe it," she said at first. "Who told you, do you say?" "My brother at Lancilly told me," said the Curé. "You do not think him worthy of much confidence, madame--and it may not be true--he had heard the report in the village." She shrugged her shoulders, with a little contempt for the Curé of Lancilly. Her old friend watched her face, pathetically changed since all this new sorrow came upon her; thinner, paler, its delicate beauty hardened, purple shadows under the still lovely eyes, and a look of bitter resentment that hurt him to see. He gazed at her imploringly. "But, madame," he murmured--"it is nothing--Monsieur de la Marinière would say it was nothing--" "I hope, Monsieur le Curé," Anne said, "that after such cruel hardness of heart he will waste his affection there no longer. Ah! who is that?" There were quick steps outside. Somebody had come in, and might be heard shaking himself in the hall; then Monsieur Joseph walked lightly into the room, bringing a rush of outside air, a smell of wet leaves, and that atmosphere of life which in his saddest moments never left him. Madame Urbain received him a little coldly; she was cold to every one in these days; but in truth his conscience told him that he might have visited her more since Urbain went away. But then--how keep the secret from Angelot's mother? No, impossible; and so he made his vintage an excuse for avoiding La Marinière. To-night, however, he had a mission to fulfil. It was horribly difficult. He sat down between her and the Curé, looked from one to the other, drank the coffee she offered him, and blushed like a girl as he said, "No news from Urbain, I suppose?" Anne's brows rose in a scornful arch; her lips pouted. "News! How should there be any?" she said, as if Urbain had gone to Paris to amuse himself. "And your vintage, Joseph?" "I finished it to-day. It was difficult--the weather was not very good--and--I have had distractions," said Monsieur Joseph, and waved away the subject. "My dear Anne," he went on, rushing headlong into another, "I have had a visitor to-day, who charged me to explain to you a certain matter--which vexes him profoundly, by the bye,--Hervé de Sainfoy, who for family reasons--"