And he finished with a smile, stopping to take a pinch of snuff with a sigh of relief--the relief of a man who has at least seasonably unburdened himself. “Surely, _mon ami_, some such possibility must have been in your mind?” Campion hesitated for a moment; then he proffered his hand, which the other warmly grasped. “You read me aright,” he said slowly, “only I hardly realised it before. Even now--no, how can I believe it possible--that she should care for me. _Non sum dignus, non sum dignus._ Consider her youth, her inexperience; the best part of my life is behind me.” But the Curé smiled reassuringly. “The best part is before you, Campion; you have the heart of a boy. Do we not know you? And for the child--rest tranquil there! I have the word of my sister, who is a wise woman, that she is sincerely attached to you; not to speak of the evidence of my own eyes. She will be seventeen shortly, then she can speak for herself. And to whom else can we trust her?” The shadow of these confidences hung over Campion when he next saw Marie-Ursule, and troubled him vaguely during the remainder of his visit, which this year, indeed, he considerably curtailed. Inevitably he was thrown much with the young girl, and if daily the charm which he found in her presence was sensibly increased, as he studied her from a fresh point of view, he was none the less disquieted at the part which he might be called upon to play. Diffident and scrupulous, a shy man, knowing little of women; and at least by temperament, a sad man, he trembled before felicity, as many at the palpable breath of misfortune. And his difficulty was increased by the conviction, forced upon him irresistibly, little as he could accuse himself of vanity, that the decision rested with himself. Her liking for him was genuine and deep, her confidence implicit. He had but to ask her and she would place her hand in his and go forth with him, as trustfully as a child. And when they came to celebrate her _fête_, Marie-Ursule’s seventeenth birthday--it occurred a little before the Assumption--it was almost disinterestedly that he had determined upon his course. At least it was security which he could promise her, as a younger man might not; a constant and single-minded kindness; a devotion not the less valuable, because it was mature and reticent, lacking, perhaps, the jealous ardours of youth. Nevertheless, he was going back to England without having revealed himself; there should be no unseasonable haste in the matter; he would give her another year. The Curé smiled deprecatingly at the procrastination; but on this point Campion was firm. And on this, his last evening, he spoke only of trivial things to Marie-Ursule, as they sat presently over the tea--a mild and flavourless beverage--which the young girl had prepared. Yet he noticed later, after their early supper, when she strolled up with him to the hill overlooking the village, a certain new shyness in her manner, a