one would turn round to stare at him.  They would guess that he was a priest and would insult Albine.  It would be vain for him to try to obliterate the traces of his priesthood.  He would always wear that mournful pallor and carry the odour of incense about with him.  And what if he should have children some day?  As this thought suddenly occurred to him, he quite started.  He felt a strange repugnance at the very idea.  He felt sure that he should not care for any children that might be born to him.  Suppose there were two of them, a little boy and a little girl.  He could never let them get on his knees; it would distress him to feel their hands clutching at his clothes.  The thought of the little girl troubled him the most; he could already see womanly tenderness shining in the depths of her big, childish eyes.  No! no! he would have no children.

Nevertheless he resolved that he would flee with Albine that evening.  But when the evening came, he felt too weary.  So he deferred his flight till the next morning.  And the next morning he made a fresh pretext for delay.  He could not leave his sister alone with La Teuse.  He would prepare a letter, directing that she should be taken to her uncle Pascal’s.  For three days he was ever on the point of writing that letter, and the paper and pen and ink were lying ready on the table in his room.  Then, on the third day, he went off, leaving the letter unwritten.  He took up his hat quite suddenly and set off for the Paradou in a state of mingled stupor and resignation, as though he were unwillingly performing some compulsory task which he saw no means of avoiding.  Albine’s image was now effaced from his memory; he no longer beheld her, but he was driven on by old resolves whose lingering influence, though they themselves were dead, still worked upon him in his silence and loneliness.

He took no pains to escape notice when he set foot out of doors.  He stopped at the end of the village to talk for a moment to Rosalie.  She told him that her baby was suffering from convulsions; but she laughed, as she spoke, with the laugh that was natural to her.  Then he struck out through the rocks, and walked straight on towards the breach in the wall.  By force of habit he had brought his breviary with him.  Finding the way long, he opened the book and read the regulation prayers.  When he put it back again under his arm, he had forgotten the Paradou.  He went on walking steadily, thinking about a new chasuble that he wished to purchase to replace the old gold-broidered one, which was certainly falling into shreds.  For some time past he had been saving up twenty-sous pieces, and he calculated that by the end of seven months he would have got the necessary amount of money together.  He had reached the hills when the song of a peasant in the distance reminded him of a canticle which had been familiar to him at the seminary.  He tried to recall the first lines of it, but his recollection failed him.  It vexed