"I am sure of that; it is only to see and hear you to be convinced that you are incapable of falsehood; but what is so incomprehensible in your situation makes me the more curious and impatient to have it cleared up; and to this alone must you attribute the abruptness of my language just now. I was wrong, I feel I was, for, although I have no claim to your confidence beyond my anxious desire to be of service to you, yet you have offered to disclose to me what you have not yet told to any person; and I can assure you, my poor girl, that this proof of your confidence in the interest I feel for you touches me very nearly. I promise you to keep your secret most scrupulously, if you confide it to me, and I will do everything in my power to effect what you may wish to have done." Thanks to this skilful patching up (the phrase will be excused, we trust), Madame d'Harville regained La Goualeuse's confidence, which had been for a moment repressed. Fleur-de-Marie, in her candour, reproached herself for having wrongly interpreted the words which had wounded her. "Excuse me, madame," she said to Clemence; "I was, no doubt, wrong not to tell you at once what you desired to know, but you asked me for the name of my preserver, and, in spite of myself, I could not resist the pleasure of speaking of him." "Nothing could be more praiseworthy, and it proves how truly grateful you are to him. Tell me how it was that you left the worthy people with whom you were, no doubt, placed by M. Rodolph? Is it to this event that the oath you were compelled to take, refers?" "Yes, madame; but, thanks to you, I think I may still keep my word faithfully, and, at the same time, inform my benefactors as to my disappearance." "Now, then, my poor girl, I am all attention to you." "It is three months nearly since M. Rodolph placed me at a farm, which is situated four or five leagues from Paris--" "Did M. Rodolph take you there himself?" "Yes, madame, and confided me to the charge of a worthy lady, as good as she was venerable; and I loved her like my mother. She and the cure of the village, at the request of M. Rodolph, took charge of my education." "And M.--Rodolph,--did he often come to the farm?" "No, madame, he only came three times during the whole time I was there." Clemence's heart throbbed with joy. "And when he came to see you that made you very happy, did it not?" "Oh, yes, madame! It was more than happiness to me; it was a feeling mingled with gratitude, respect, adoration, and even a degree of fear." "Of fear?" "Between him and me, between him and others, the distance is so great!" "But what, then, was his rank?" "I do not know that he had any rank, madame." "Yet you allude to the distance which exists between him and others."