Since his return from Notre Dame de l'Atre his friendship with the Abbe had become much closer, altogether intimate.
He knew now the inner man of this priest, who, in the midst of modern surroundings, led a purely mediaeval life.

Formerly, when he rang at his bell, he had paid no heed to the housekeeper, an old woman, who curtsied to him without a word when she opened the door.
Now he was quite friendly with this singular and loving creature.
Their first conversation had arisen one day when he called to see the Abbe, who was ill.

Seated by the bedside, with spectacles on the alert at the tip of her nose, she was kissing, one by one, the pious prints that illustrated a book wrapped in black cloth.

She begged him to be seated, and then, closing the volume, and replacing her spectacles, she had joined in the conversation; and he had left the room quite amazed by this woman, who addressed the Abbe as "Father," and spoke quite simply of her intercourse with Jesus and the Saints as if it were a natural thing.

She seemed to live in perfect friendship with them, and spoke of them as of companions with whom she chatted without any embarrassment.
Then the countenance of this woman, whom the priest introduced to him as Madame Celeste Bavoil, was, strange to say, the least of it.