the Christ, who had only to be asked in order to heal the sick,
there is not so much as a ghost of Him anywhere! If what you priests
tell us were true, poor souls such as I am, would get comfort and
help in our sorrows, but it is all a lie!--the whole thing!--and
when we are in trouble, we have got to bear it as best we can,
without so much as a kind word from our neighbours, let alone any
pity from the saints. Go to mass again? Not I!--nor to confession
either!--and no more of my earnings will click into your great brass
collection plate, mon reverend! Ah no!--I have been a foolish woman
indeed, to trust so long in a God who for all my tears and prayers
never gives me a sign or a hope of an answer,--and though I suppose
this wretched world of ours was made by somebody, whoever it is that
has done it is a cruel creature at best, so _I_ say,--without as
much good feeling as there is in the heart of an ordinary man, and
without the sense of the man either! For who that thinks twice about
it would make a world where everything is only born to die?--and for
no other use at all! Bah! It is sheer folly and wickedness to talk
to me of a God!--a God, if there were one, would surely be far above
torturing the creatures He has made, all for nothing!"

And the priest who heard this blasphemous and savage tirade on the
part of Martine Doucet, retreated from her in amazement and horror,
and presently gave out that she was possessed of a devil, and was
unfit to be admitted to the Holy Sacrament. Whereat, when she heard
of it, Martine laughed loudly and ferociously.

"Look you!--what a charitable creature a priest is!" she cried--"If
you don't do the things he considers exactly right and fitting, he
tells your neighbours that the devil has got you!--and so little
does he care to pick you out of the clutches of this same devil,