The summer passed away, and Abbé Faujas seemed in no hurry to derive¹ any advantage from his increasing popularity. He still kept himself in seclusion² at the Mourets', delighting in the solitude³ of the garden, to which he now came down during the day-time. He read his breviary as he slowly walked with bent⁴ head up and down the green arbour at the far end. Sometimes he would close his book, still further slacken his steps, and seem to be buried in deep reverie. Mouret, who used to watch him, at last became impatient and irritated at seeing that black figure walking to and fro for hours together behind his fruit-trees.

'One has no privacy left,' he muttered. 'I can't lift my eyes now without catching⁵ sight of that cassock. He is like a crow, that fellow there, with his round eyes that always seem to be on the look-out for something. I don't believe in his fine disinterested⁶ airs.'

[Pg 108]

It was not till early in September that the Home of the Virgin⁷ was completed. In the provinces workmen are painfully slow; though it must be stated that the lady patronesses had twice upset Monsieur Lieutaud's designs in favour of ideas of their own. When the committee took possession of the building they rewarded the architect for the complaisance⁸ he had manifested by lavishing⁹ the highest praises upon him. Everything seemed to them perfectly¹⁰ satisfactory. The rooms were large, the communications were excellent, and there was a courtyard planted with trees and

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