‘Do you hear?  Do you hear?’ faltered Albine in Serge’s ear, when she had let him slip upon the grass at the foot of the tree.

Serge was weeping.

‘You see that the Paradou is not dead,’ she added.  ’It is crying out to us to love each other.  It still desires our union.  Oh, do remember!  Clasp me to your heart!’

Serge still wept.

Albine said nothing more.  She flung her arms around him; she pressed her warm lips to his corpse-like face; but tears were still his only answer.

Then, after a long silence, Albine spoke.  She stood erect, full of contempt and determination.

‘Away with you!  Go!’ she said, in a low voice.

Serge rose with difficulty.  He picked up his breviary, which had fallen upon the grass.  And he walked away.

‘Away with you!  Go!’ repeated Albine, in louder tones, as she followed and drove him before her.

Thus she urged him on from bush to bush till she had driven him back to the breach in the wall, in the midst of the stern-looking trees.  And there, as she saw Serge hesitate, with lowered head she cried out violently: 

‘Away with you Go!’

And slowly she herself went back into the Paradou, without even turning her head.  Night was fast falling, and the garden was but a huge bier of shadows.

XIII

Brother Archangias, aroused from his slumber, stood erect in the breach, striking the stones with his stick and swearing abominably.

’May the devil break their legs for them!  May he drag them to hell by their feet, with their noses trailing in their abomination!’

But when he saw Albine driving away the priest, he stopped for a moment in surprise.  Then he struck the stones yet more vigorously, and burst into a roar of laughter.

’Good-bye, you hussy!  A pleasant journey to you!  Go back to your mates the wolves!  A priest is no fit companion for such as you.’

Then, looking at Abbe Mouret, he growled: 

’I knew you were in there.  I saw that the stones had been disturbed. . . .  Listen to me, Monsieur le Cure.  Your sin has made me your superior, and God tells you, through my mouth, that hell has no torments severe enough for a priest who lets himself succumb to the lusts of the flesh.  If He were to pardon you now, He would be too indulgent, it would be contrary to His own justice.’

They slowly walked down the hill towards Les Artaud.  The priest had not opened his lips; but gradually he raised his head erect:  he was no longer trembling.  As in the distance he caught sight of the Solitaire looming blackly against the purplish sky, and the ruddy glow of the tiles on the church, a faint smile came to his lips, while to his calm eyes there rose an expression of perfect serenity.

Meantime the Brother was every now and then giving a vicious kick at the stones that came in his way.  Presently he turned to his companion: