The son of a rich peasant, I was sent to Paris to complete my studies. During four years passed in that great city, I retained the awkwardness of my manners, the simplicity of my language, but I rapidly lost the ingenuousness of my sentiments. I returned to these mountains, almost learned, but almost incredulous in all those points of faith which enable a man to pass his life contentedly beneath a thatched roof, in the society of his wife and children, without caring to look beyond the cross above the village cemetery. Whilst contemplating the love of William and of Eva, I had reverted to my former simple peasant-nature. I began to dream of a virtuous, affectionate wife, diligent and frugal, embellishing my house by her care and order. I saw myself proud of the gentle severity of her features, revealing to all the chaste and faithful spouse. Very different were these reveries from those that haunted me at Paris after joyous evenings spent with my comrades. Suddenly, horrible calamity descended like a thunderbolt upon Eva Meredith. This time I was slower to appreciate the lesson I daily received. Eva sat constantly at the window, her sad gaze fixed upon the heavens. The attitude, common in persons of meditative mood, attracted my attention but little. Her persistence in it at last struck me. My book open upon my knees, I looked at Mrs Meredith; and well assured she would not detect my gaze, I examined her attentively. She still gazed at the sky--my eyes followed the direction of hers. "Ah," I said to myself with a half smile, "she thinks to rejoin him _there_!" Then I resumed my book, thinking how fortunate it was for the weakness of women that such thoughts came to the relief of their sorrows. I have already told you that my student's life had put evil thoughts into my head. Every day, however, I saw Eva in the same attitude, and every day my reflections were recalled to the same subject. Little by little I came to think her dream a good one, and to regret I could not credit its reality. The soul, heaven, eternal life, all that the old priest had formerly taught me, glided through my imagination as I sat at eventide before the open window. "The doctrine of the old _curé_," I said to myself, "was more comforting than the cold realities science has revealed to me." Then I looked at Eva, who still looked to heaven, whilst the bells of the village church sounded sweetly in the distance, and the rays of the setting sun made the steeple-cross glitter against the sky. I often returned to sit opposite the poor widow, persevering in her grief as in her holy hopes.