Meanwhile Bigourdin beamed over the letter to his elder sister Clothilde, a comfortable and almost opulent widow who lived at Chartres. They had not met for a dozen years, it is true, and she had only once seen Félise; but the sense of the family is very strong in France, especially where marriage alliances are concerned, and he had no doubt that she would telegraph, as requested, and authorise him to entrust Félise to her keeping. Verily it had been an inspiration. It was a solution of difficulties. The Viriots had given signs of an almost indecent hurry, which naturally had scared Félise. A month was a long time. Clothilde was a woman of experience, tact and good sense. She would know how to bring Félise to a reasonable state of mind. If she did not succeed—well—he was not the man to force his little Félise into a distasteful marriage. In any case he had a month’s respite. Having stated his case at length, he went out into the town to post such an important letter at the central _Postes et Télégraphes_, and on the way back, looked in at the shop of the very respectable Madame Chauvet, who, with her two elderly daughters, sold crucifixes and rosaries and books of devotion and candles and all that would supply the devout needs of the religious population. And after a prolonged and courtly conversation, he induced Madame Chauvet, in consideration of their old friendship, her expenses and an honorarium of twenty francs, to undertake the safe convoy of Félise from Brantôme to the house of Madame Robineau, her Aunt Clothilde, at Chartres. CHAPTER XI MADAME ROBINEAU was tall, angular, thin-lipped and devout, and so far as she indulged in social intercourse, loved to mingle with other angular, thin-lipped and devout ladies who belonged to the same lay sisterhood. She dressed in unrelieved black and always wore on her bosom a bronze cross of threatening magnitude. She prayed in the Cathedral at inconvenient hours, and fasted as rigorously as her Confessor, Monsieur l’Abbé Duloup, himself. Monsieur l’Abbé regarded her as one of the most pious women in Chartres. No doubt she was.