“Telegraph! Tell your banker to deposit the sixty thousand francs at the Crédit Foncier in Paris and tell them to telegraph to the Crédit Foncier at Pau to remit the sum immediately. It’s rudimentary.” “I have some money on deposit at Pau,” she stammered. Then his indignation knew no bounds. “Ah, Madam! All this beating about the bush before you tell me so? Is this your eagerness? What would you say now if I were to refuse your assistance?...” Then pacing up and down the room, his hands crossed behind his back, and as though nothing she could say now could placate him: “This is worse than lukewarmness,” and he made little clicks with his tongue to show his disgust, “this is almost duplicity.” “Monsieur l’abbé, I implore you....” For a few moments the abbé, with frowning brows, inflexibly continued his pacing. Then at last: “You are acquainted, I know, with Father Boudin, with whom I am lunching this very morning--” (he pulled out his watch) “I shall be late. Make out a cheque in his name; he will be able to cash the sixty thousand at once and hand it over to me. When you see him again, just say that it was ‘for the expiatory chapel’; he is a man of discretion and tact--he will not insist further. Well! What are you waiting for?” The Countess, prostrate on the sofa, rose, dragged herself towards a small bureau, which she opened, and took out from it an olive-green cheque-book, a leaf of which she filled in with her long pointed handwriting. “Excuse me for having been a little severe with you just now, Madame la comtesse,” said the abbé in a softened voice as he took the cheque she held out to him, “but such interests are at stake!” Then, slipping the cheque into an inner pocket: “It would be impious to thank you, would it not?--even in the name of Him in whose hands I am but an unworthy instrument.” He was overcome by a brief fit of sobbing, which he stifled in his handkerchief; but recovering himself in a moment, with a sharp stamp of his heel on the ground, he rapidly murmured a few words in a foreign language. “Are you Italian?” asked the Countess. “Spanish! The sincerity of my emotions betrays me.” “Your accent doesn’t. Really your French is so perfect....” “You are very kind, Madame la comtesse. Excuse me for leaving you a little abruptly. Now that we have come to an arrangement, I shall be able to get to Narbonne this very evening; the archbishop is expecting me there impatiently. Good-bye!” He took both the Countess’s hands in his and, with his head thrown back, looked at her fixedly: “Good-bye, Countess de Saint-Prix!” Then, with a finger on his lips: “Remember that a word of yours may ruin everything.” He had no sooner left the house than the Countess flew to the bell-pull. “Amélie, tell Pierre that I shall want the barouche directly after lunch to drive into Pau. Oh, and wait a minute!... Tell Germain to get his bicycle at once and take a note to Madame Fleurissoire. I’ll write it now.”