"Who is there?" said the Abbé, starting like a guilty man.
"It is I," replied old Jeannette. "A servant from the château presents the compliments of Madame la Comtesse, and requests M. le Curé to pay her a visit directly on urgent business."
"You see," said the Baron, "my sister has her scruples already. Go quickly, my dear Abbé, and do not forget that the interests of the church are in your hands. It is a holy mission!"
"A holy mission!" repeated the priest, as he turned to leave the room. "A holy mission! O mon Dieu, mon Dieu! do not forsake thy servant!"
CHAPTER IV.
The Vow.
André Bernard arrived at the Château de Peyrelade like a man walking in his sleep. He found that he had been ushered into the Countess's boudoir, and that he was sitting there awaiting her arrival, without having the faintest remembrance of the forest through which he must have come, the gates through which he must have passed, or the staircase which he must have ascended. Truly the Abbé Bernard had been asleep, and his sleep had lasted for two months. Now he was slowly awaking, and it was the stern reality of his position that so bewildered him.
The charm which spread itself round the young and beautiful Countess had not been unfelt by this lonely priest, whose calm and passionless existence had hitherto been passed in the society of an aged housekeeper, or of a simple and untaught peasantry. Seeing nothing for long years beyond the narrow limits of his own little world—his parsonage, his chapel, or his parishioners; familiar only with the savage grandeur of the mountains, or the cool stillnesses of the valleys, is it to be wondered at that the presence of an accomplished and graceful woman should blind the reason of a simple Curé?
Even at this moment, the perfumed atmosphere of the boudoir intoxicated him. Exotics of exquisite shape and colour, with long drooping leaves and heavy white and purple blossoms, were piled against the windows; a Persian carpet, gorgeous with eastern dyes—
"Orange and azure deep'ning into gold,"