Anselmo at the convent said to me he thought so. There was a vine of the
wild grape which ran all over the wall between the cloister and the
convent; and when it was in bloom the air sickened one, and thou couldst
hardly go near the wall for the swarming bees that were drinking the
honey from the flowers. And Father Anselmo said one evening that they
were thieves; they stole sweet which ought to go into the grapes."

This was a clever diversion. It turned Jeanne's thoughts at once away
from Willan Blaycke, but it did not save Mademoiselle Victorine from a
catechising quite as sharp as she was in danger of on the other subject.

"And what wert thou doing talking with a priest in the garden at night?"
cried Jeanne, fiercely. "Is that the way maidens are trained in a
convent! Shame on thee, Victorine! what hast thou revealed?"

"The Virgin forbid," answered Victorine, piously, racking her brains
meanwhile for a ready escape from this dilemma, and trying in her fright
to recall precisely what she had just said. "I said not that he told it
to me in the garden; it was in the confessional that he said it. I had
confessed to him the grievous sin of a horrible rage I had been in when
one of the bees had stung me on the lip as I was gathering the cool vine
leaves to lay on the good Sister Clarice's forehead, who was ill with a
fever."

"Eh, eh!" said Jeanne, relieved; "was that it? I thought it could not be
thou wert in the garden in the evening hours, and with a priest."

"Oh no," said Victorine, demurely. "It was not permitted to converse
with the priests except in the chapel." And choking back an amused
little laugh she bounded to the ladder-like stairway and climbed up into