"What is the difficulty?" asked the priest, stopping in the angle of the path, where it turned toward the front of the house.
She averted her face, and began picking the thin scales of bark from a crape-myrtle.
"Madame Thompson and her husband were at our house this morning. He had told Monsieur Thompson all about it. They were very kind to me at first, but they tried"—She was weeping.
"What did they try to do?" asked the priest.
"They tried to make me believe he is insane."
She succeeded in passing her handkerchief up under her veil.
"And I suppose then your poor mother grew angry, eh?"
"Yes; and they became much more so, and said if we did not write, or send a writing, to him, within twenty-four hours, breaking the"—
"Engagement," said Père Jerome.
"They would give him up to the Government. Oh, Père Jerome, what shall I do? It is killing my mother!"