He was not listening to her.  He suddenly gave vent to a little cry, and said:  ‘Ah! now I recollect!’

She asked him what he meant, but he would not answer her.  He had just remembered the feeling he had long ago experienced in the chapel of the seminary.  That was the icy robe enwrapping his shoulders and turning him to stone.  And then his life as a priest took complete possession of his thoughts.  The vague recollections which had haunted him as he walked from Les Artaud to the Paradou became more and more distinct and assumed complete mastery over him.  While Albine talked on of the happy life that they would lead together, he heard the tinkling of the sanctuary bell that signalled the elevation of the Host, and he saw the monstrance trace gleaming crosses over the heads of kneeling multitudes.

‘And for your sake,’ Albine was saying, ’I will put on my broidered skirts again. . . .  I want you to be bright and gay.  We will try to find something to make you lively.  Perhaps you will love me better when you see me looking beautiful and prettily dressed, like a fine lady.  I will wear my comb properly and won’t let my hair fall wildly about my neck any more.  And I won’t roll my sleeves up over my elbows; I will fasten my dress so as to hide my shoulders.  I still know how to bow and how to walk along quite properly.  Yes, I will make you a nice little wife, as I walk through the streets leaning on your arm.’

‘Did you ever go to church when you were a little girl?’ he asked her in an undertone, as if, in spite of himself, he were continuing aloud the reverie which prevented him from hearing her.  ’I could never pass a church without entering it.  As soon as the door closed silently behind me, I felt as though I were in Paradise itself, with the angels whispering stories of love in my ears and the saints caressing me with their breath.  Ah!  I would have liked to live there for ever, in that absorbing beatitude.’

She looked at him with steady eyes, a passing blaze kindling in her loving glance.  Nevertheless, submissive still, she answered: 

’I will do as you may fancy.  I learned music once.  I was quite a clever young lady and was taught all the accomplishments.  I will go back to school and start music again.  If there is any tune you would like to hear me play, you will only have to tell me, and I will practise it for months and months, so as to play it to you some evening in our own home when we are by ourselves in some snug little room, with the curtains closely drawn.  And you will pay me with just one kiss, won’t you?  A kiss right on the lips, which will awaken all your love again!’

‘Yes, yes,’ he murmured, answering his own thoughts only; ’my great pleasure at first was to light the candles, prepare the cruets, and carry the missal.  Then, afterwards, I was filled with bliss at the approach of God, and felt as though I could die of sheer love.  Those are my only recollections.  I know of nothing else.  When I raise my hand, it is to give a benediction.  When my lips protrude it is to kiss the altar.  If I look for my heart, I can no longer find it.  I have offered it to God, and He has taken it.’