I know that he is always right. But for his salvation! Oh! if I could,
I would work for that, in spite of him. In every way, yes! I would
force him; it is too cruel to me to think that he will not be in
heaven with us."

"You are quite right, my girl," said Felicite approvingly. "You, at
least, love your master in an intelligent fashion."

Between the two, Clotilde still seemed irresolute. In her, belief did
not bend to the strict rule of dogma; the religious sentiment did not
materialize in the hope of a paradise, of a place of delights, where
she was to meet her own again. It was in her simply a need of a
beyond, a certainty that the vast world does not stop short at
sensation, that there is a whole unknown world, besides, which must be
taken into account. But her grandmother, who was so old, this servant,
who was so devoted, shook her in her uneasy affection for her uncle.
Did they not love him better, in a more enlightened and more upright
fashion, they who desired him to be without a stain, freed from his
manias as a scientist, pure enough to be among the elect? Phrases of
devotional books recurred to her; the continual battle waged against
the spirit of evil; the glory of conversions effected after a violent
struggle. What if she set herself to this holy task; what if, after
all, in spite of himself, she should be able to save him! And an
exaltation gradually gained her spirit, naturally inclined to
adventurous enterprises.

"Certainly," she said at last, "I should be very happy if he would not
persist in his notion of heaping up all those scraps of paper, and if
he would come to church with us."