“Mercédès begged for six months more in which to await and mourn for Edmond.”

“So that,” said the abbé, with a bitter smile, “that makes eighteen months in all. What more could the most devoted lover desire?” Then he murmured the words of the English poet, “ ‘Frailty, thy name is woman.’ ”

“Six months afterwards,” continued Caderousse, “the marriage took place in the church of Accoules.”

“The very church in which she was to have married Edmond,” murmured the priest; “there was only a change of bridegrooms.”