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mentally cursed himself. He felt like a man who has distressed a child, and he cast about for some small way of making amends. Halfway through dejeuner he had an idea.
    “Father,” he said, “you are making alterations in your church here, are you not?”
    The little man brightened visibly. This, Maddox knew, was his pet hobby.
    “But yes, Monsieur,” he replied quite eagerly. “For some time now I have been at work, now that at last I have enough. Monseigneur has given me his blessing. It is, you see, that there is beside our church here the fragment of an old building – oh, but old! One says that perhaps it also was a church or a shrine once, but what do I know? – but it is very well built, very strong, and I conceived the idea that one might join it to the church. Figure to yourself, Monsieur, I should then have a double aisle! It will be magnificent. I shall paint it, naturally, to make all look as it should. The church is already painted of a blue of the most heavenly, for the Holy Virgin, with lilies in white – I had hoped for lilies of gold, but gold paint, it is incredible, the cost! – and the new chapel I will have in crimson for the Sacred Heart, with hearts of yellow as a border. It will be gay, isn’t it?”
    Maddox shuddered inwardly.
    “Very gay,” he agreed gloomily. There was something that appealed to him very much in the shabby whitewashed little church. He felt pained at the very thought of Father Vetier’s blue and crimson and yellow. But the little cure noticed nothing.
    “Already I have begun the present church,” he babbled, “and, monsieur, you should see it! It is truly celestial, that colour. Now I shall begin to prepare the old building, so that as soon as the walls are built to join it to the present church, I can decorate. They will not take long, those little walls, not long at all, and then I shall paint…” He seemed lost in a vision of rapture. Maddox was both amused and touched. Good little chap, it had been a shame to annoy him over that silly incantation business. He felt a renewed impulse to please the friendly little man.
    “Can I help you at all, Father?” he asked. “Could I scrape the walls for you or anything like that? I won’t offer to paint; I’m not expert enough.”
    The priest positively beamed. He was a genial soul who loved company, even at his work; but even more he loved putting on thick layers of bright colours according to his long-planned design. To have a companion who did not wish to paint was more than he had ever hoped for. He accepted with delight.
    After breakfast, Maddox was taken to see the proposed addition to the church. It stood on the north side of the little church (which, of course, ran east and west), and, as far as Maddox could see, consisted mainly of a piece of masonry running parallel with the wall of the church. Fragments of walls, now crumbled, almost joined it to the east and west ends of the north wall of the church; it might almost have been, at one time, a part of the little church. It certainly, as Father Vétier had said, would not take much alteration to connect it to the church as a north aisle. Maddox set to work to chip the plaster facing from the old wall with a good will.
    In the afternoon the curé announced that he had to pay a visit to a sick man some miles away. He accepted with great gratitude his visitor’s proposal that he should continue the preparations for the painting of the new aisle. With such efficient help, he said, he would have the addition to the church ready for the great feast of St. Michael, patron saint both of the village and the church. Maddox was delighted to see how completely his plan had worked in restoring the little man’s placid good-humour.
    Shortly after two, Maddox went into the churchyard and resumed his labours. He chipped away industriously, and was just beginning to find the work pall when he made a discovery that set him chipping again eagerly at the coat of plaster which