"Do not remain alone with your thoughts, my child. Carry your rosary always with you, and tell your beads often, not mechanically but with your whole heart. Confide your sorrows to your good grandmother, whose Christian sentiments I well know. That simple-minded old woman has a great heart. "Avoid the town. Tell your father--who has always done as you wished, nor has he had reason to repent of so doing--to have an eye to his house, and never to leave you alone. Avoid Renaud for some little time; at all events, do not seek him. He must have an opportunity to read his own heart clearly; we must not--by trying to bring him back to you--help him to mistake his affection for you, which is not, perhaps, so deep as it should be. I will speak to him myself when I have an opportunity. The day after to-morrow is the day of the fête at Saintes-Maries. Do not fail to be present; bring us that day a heart filled with faith and with the desire to do what is right. You will meet many unfortunates there. Turn your eyes toward those who are more wretched than yourself, and by comparing their lot with yours, you will see how fortunate you are, who have youth and good health. "The health of the soul depends upon ourselves. You will save yours. "You will be the one, on the day of the fête, to sing the solo of invocation just as the reliquaries descend--I ask you to do it, and, if need be, I will lay the duty upon you as a penance. "She who thinks on God and the holy women forgets all earthly ills. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. They who fear shall be reassured. Blessed are they who weep, for they shall be comforted----" Monsieur le curé broke off abruptly. He realized, the kind-hearted man, that his discourse was, by force of habit, degenerating into a commonplace sermon, and, rising from his chair, he walked quickly toward the door, bestowing an affectionate tap on the trembling maiden's cheek with two fingers of the hand that held his snuff-box, saying to her in a fatherly tone: "Go, little one; you have a good heart. The wicked can do naught against us. I will pray for you at Mass. Everybody in the country loves you. Have no fear, my daughter." Livette took her leave. The curé, left to himself, sighed. He saw that Livette was confronted by an ill-defined, strange, diabolical peril, of the kind that cannot be turned aside, that God alone can avert. "It is fate," he muttered, employing unthinkingly a word of twofold signification.[8] "It is fate," he repeated. "Life is a sea of troubles, and God is mysterious." XVI ON THE ROOF OF THE CHURCH Renaud, after his victory, dismounted for a moment, and, sitting down beside Bernard, on the shore of the Vaccarès, where the cattle and mares of his drove had resumed their attitude of repose, he set about reviewing recent events in his mind.