'Wasn't it Madame Rougon who told you to come and give me this good advice?' he suddenly asked the old priest.
'How did you know that?' the latter exclaimed in great astonishment. 'She asked me not to mention her name, but since you have guessed it—Ah! she is a good, kind-hearted lady who would be much distressed to see a priest compromising himself in her house. She is unfortunately compelled to receive all sorts of persons.'
Abbé Faujas expressed his thanks, and promised to be more prudent in the future. The card-players had not taken any notice of the two priests, who returned into the big drawing-room, where Faujas was again conscious of hostile surroundings. He even experienced greater coldness and more silent contempt than before. The ladies pulled their dresses out of his way as though his touch would have soiled them, and the men turned away from him with sneering titters. He himself maintained haughty calmness and indifference. Fancying that he heard the word Besançon meaningly pronounced in a corner of the room where Madame de Condamin was holding her court, he walked straight up to the folks by whom she was surrounded; but, at his approach, there was a dead silence amongst them, and they all stared him in the face with eyes that gleamed with uncharitable curiosity. He felt quite sure that they had been talking about him, and repeating some disgraceful story. While he was still standing there, behind the Rastoil young ladies, who had not observed him, he heard the younger one ask her sister:
'What was it that this priest, of whom everyone is talking, did at Besançon?'
'I don't quite know,' the elder sister replied. 'I believe he nearly murdered his vicar in a quarrel they had. Papa also said that he had been mixed up in some great business speculation which turned out badly.'
'He's in the small room over there, isn't he? Somebody saw him just now laughing with Monsieur de Condamin.'
'Oh! then people do quite right to distrust him if he laughs with Monsieur de Condamin.'
This gossip of the two girls made perspiration start from Abbé Faujas's brows. He did not frown, but his lips tightened one upon the other, and his cheeks took an ashy tint. He seemed to hear the whole room talking of the priest whom he had tried to murder, and of the shady transactions in which he had been concerned.
Opposite him were Monsieur Delangre and Doctor Porquier, still looking very severe; Monsieur de Bourdeu's mouth pouted scornfully as he said something in a low voice to a lady; Monsieur Maffre, the justice of the peace, was casting furtive glances at him, as if he had piously resolved to examine him from a distance before condemning him; and at the other end of the room the two hideous Paloques craned out their malice-warped faces, in which shone a wicked joy at all the cruel stories that were being whispered about. Abbé Faujas slowly retired as he saw Madame Rastoil, who had been standing a few paces away, come up and seat herself between her two daughters, as though to keep them under the protection of her wing and shield them from his touch. He rested his elbow on the piano which he saw behind him, and there he stood with his head erect and his face as hard and silent as a face of stone. He felt that they were all in a plot to treat him as an outcast.