carriage with her mother. The Abbe Dutheil (just appointed to a
bishopric) occupied the front seat of the carriage with old
Grossetete. As they passed through the place d'Aine, Veronique showed
signs of a sudden shock; her face contracted so that the play of the
muscles could be seen; she clasped her infant to her breast with a
convulsive motion, which old Madame Sauviat concealed by instantly
taking the child, for she seemed to be on the watch for her daughter's
agitation. Chance willed that Madame Graslin should pass through the
square in which stood the house she had formerly occupied with her
father and mother in her girlish days; she grasped her mother's hand
while great tears fell from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

After leaving Limoges she turned and looked back, seeming to feel an
emotion of happiness which was noticed by all her friends. When
Monsieur de Grandville, then a young man of twenty-five, whom she
declined to take as a husband, kissed her hand with an earnest
expression of regret, the new bishop noticed the strange manner in
which the black pupil of Veronique's eyes suddenly spread over the
blue of the iris, reducing it to a narrow circle. The eye betrayed
unmistakably some violent inward emotion.

"I shall never see him again," she whispered to her mother, who
received this confidence without betraying the slightest feeling in
her old face.

Madame Graslin was at that instant under the observation of
Grossetete, who was directly in front of her; but, in spite of his
shrewdness, the old banker did not detect the hatred which Veronique
felt for the magistrate, whom she nevertheless received at her house.
But churchmen have far more perception than other men, and Monsieur