"I am far from indulgent towards our peasants, but I know not why I should have felt myself disposed to be unusually severe to a person whose rank seemed to place her above them. The lady's voice was trembling with emotion, her accent was timid and sweet; and without here disclosing one of our greatest, one of our most sacred secrets, since, alas! monsieur, I only tell you the facts which have since been made public by a frightful event, I recognised that day, and from thenceforth, a most noble and repentant soul, but at the same time most weak and guilty in its criminal attachment to the count. This attachment resembled a sort of exaltation which, were it not almost a profanation of the words, I might describe as holy and religious. "What more can I tell you, monsieur! After six months' residence in our part of the country, the count and this lady, whom our peasants in their grateful simplicity called 'l'Ange Marie' (for no one had ever heard her called by any name but Marie),--the count and this lady had been so charitable that one could hardly find an unhappy creature in the whole parish. What is more, such was the strange confidence that our mountaineers had in the inexhaustible beneficence of this sweet soul, that if sometimes I would seek to deter them from some perilous hunting excursion by reminding them of their families, should any of them perish, they would reply to me, 'Father, the Angel Marie will take care of them.' In short, this lady had become the providence of the village, and the poor folks relied on her goodness as on the _bon Dieu._ "At the end of a year this beloved and blessed lady fell dangerously ill. At the sad news, I cannot describe to you, monsieur, the fear or the despair of our peasants, the prayers, the _ex-voto_ which they offered for her, the desolation which reigned in the village. "Fearing to compromise the rigorous severity of my character, although the count had been to see me every day I had never been to return any of his visits; but when that lady was very ill, and asked for me, and the count came and besought me to go to her, I could not refuse to do so. I found her apparently dying. "It was a dreadful moment. Never until now had her piety been revealed to me in all its depth and fervour. I consoled her, I exhorted her. For eight days we watched her with the greatest anxiety. Finally, her youth saved her.