"You are the loveliest woman in the world," I said, without any sort of warning. "Ah, Louise—surely I may call you that now—how I adore you! I cannot any longer keep back what is in my heart. See yonder where the sun has set—that is where La Tournoire is. It seems to beckon us—not me alone, but us—together. When will you come?—when may I take you to my father and mother, and hear them say I could not have found a sweeter wife in all France?"
Trembling, she raised her moist eyes to mine, and said in a voice like a low sigh:
"Ah, Henri, if it were possible! But you forget the barrier: we are not of the same religion. I know your mother changed her faith for your father's sake; but I could never do so."
"But what if I changed for your sake?" I said, taking her hand.
"Henri! will you do that?" she cried, with a joy that told all I wished to know.
In truth, I had often thought of going over to the national form of worship. As soon, therefore, as I got to La Tournoire after this meeting, I opened the matter to my father.
"Why," said he, "I think it a sensible resolve. The times are changed; since King Henri's death, there is no longer any hope of us Huguenots maintaining a balance. As a party, we have done our work, and are doomed to pass away. Those who persist will only keep up a division in the nation, from which they can gain nothing, and which will be a source of useless troubles. As for the religious side of the question, some people prefer artificial forms of expression, some do not. It is a matter of externals: and if one must needs subscribe to a few doctrines he does not believe, who is harmed by that? These things are much to women, and we, to whom they are less, can afford to yield. I often fancy your mother would like to go back to the faith of her childhood,—and if she ever expresses the wish, I will not hinder her. When I married her, all was different: I could not have become a Catholic then. Nor indeed can I do so now. Blaise Tripault and I are too old for new tricks: we must not change our colours at this late day: we are survivals from a bygone state of things. But you, my son, belong to a new France. Our great Henri said. 'Surely Paris is worth a mass': and I dare say this lady is as much to you as Paris was to him."
So the Church gained a convert and I a wife. Hugues and Mathilde came to live on our estate. And Mlle. Celeste, in course of time, was married to a raw young Gascon as lean as a lath, as poor as a fiddler, and as thirsty as a Dutchman, but with moustaches twice as long as those of Brignan de Brignan.