She plucked up courage, like a coward who plunges headlong into danger. "Father, I should like to have another child." He did not reply, as he did not understand her. Then she explained, timid and unable to express herself clearly: "I am all alone in life now; my father and my husband do not get along together; my mother is dead; and--and----" she added with a shudder, "the other day I nearly lost my son! What would have become of me then?" She was silent. The priest, bewildered, was gazing at her. "Come, get to the point of your subject." "I want to have another child," she said. Then he smiled, accustomed to the coarse jokes of the peasants, who were not embarrassed in his presence, and he replied, with a sly motion of his head: "Well, it seems to me that it depends only on yourself." She raised her candid eyes to his face, and said, hesitating with confusion: "But--but--you understand that since--since--what you know about--about that maid--my husband and I have lived--have lived quite apart." Accustomed to the promiscuity and undignified relations of the peasants, he was astonished at the revelation. All at once he thought he guessed at the young woman's real desire, and looking at her out of the corner of his eye, with a heart full of benevolence and of sympathy for her distress, he said: "Oh, I understand perfectly. I know that your widowhood must be irksome to you. You are young and in good health. It is natural, quite natural." He smiled, bearing out his easy-going character of a country priest, and tapping Jeanne lightly on the hand, he said: "That is permissible, very permissible indeed, according to the commandments. You are married, are you not? Well, then, what is the harm?" She, in her turn, had not understood his hidden meaning; but as soon as she saw through it, she blushed scarlet, shocked, and with tears in her eyes exclaimed: "Oh, Monsieur le Curé, what are you saying? What are you thinking of? I swear to you--I swear to you----" And sobs choked her words. He was surprised and sought to console her: "Come, I did not mean to hurt your feelings. I was only joking a little; there is no harm in that when one is decent. But you may rely on me, you may rely on me. I will see M. Julien." She did not know what to say. She now wished to decline this intervention, which she thought clumsy and dangerous, but she did not dare to do so, and she went away hurriedly, faltering: "I am grateful to you, Monsieur le Curé." A week passed. One day at dinner Julien looked at her with a peculiar expression, a certain smiling curve of the lips that she had noticed when he was teasing her. He was even almost ironically gallant toward her, and as they were walking after dinner in little mother's avenue, he said in a low tone: "We seem to have made up again."