"I assured him that he could reckon on me, and that I should only be too
happy to oblige a man such as himself."

"And the result is, I suppose, that you are waiting impatiently for the
hour of your appointment?" I said to the abbe.

"I am," he replied; "and my new acquaintance has so many attractions for
me that, if I were not afraid of abusing the confidence he has placed in
me, I should take Edmee to the spring of Fougeres."

"I fancy," I replied, "that Edmee has something better to do than to
listen to the declamations of your monk, who perhaps, after all, is only
a knave, like so many others to whom you have given money blindly. You
will forgive me, I know, abbe; but you are not a good physiognomist, and
you are rather apt to form a good or bad opinion of people for no reason
except that your own romantic nature happens to feel kindly or timidly
disposed towards them."

The abbe smiled and pretended that I said this because I bore him a
grudge; he again asserted his belief in the Trappist's piety, and then
went back to botany. We passed some time at Patience's, examining the
collection of plants; and as my one desire was to escape from my own
thoughts, I left the hut with the abbe and accompanied him as far as the
wood where he was to meet the monk. In proportion as we drew near to
the place the abbe seemed to lose more and more of his eagerness of the
previous evening, and even expressed a fear that he had gone too
far. This hesitation, following so quickly upon enthusiasm, was very
characteristic of the abbe's mobile, loving, timid nature, with its
strange union of the most contrary impulses, and I again began to rally