TOWARDS LIFE ONE evening, at the close of a good day's work, Pierre, who was helping Thomas, suddenly caught his foot in the skirt of his cassock and narrowly escaped falling.

At this, Marie, after raising a faint cry of anxiety, exclaimed: "Why don't you take it off ?" There was no malice in her inquiry.

She simply looked upon the priestly robe as something too heavy and cumbersome, particularly when one had certain work to perform.

Nevertheless, her words deeply impressed Pierre, and he could not forget them.

When he was at home in the evening and repeated them to himself they gradually threw him into feverish agitation.