It was only about one o’clock that a peasant, who had gone to Plassans to sell vegetables, had told Doctor Pascal of Albine’s death, and had added that Jeanbernat wished to see him.  The doctor now was feeling a little relieved by what he had just shouted as he passed the parsonage.  He had gone out of his way expressly to give himself that satisfaction.  He reproached himself for the death of the girl as for a crime in which he had participated.  All along the road he had never ceased overwhelming himself with insults, and though he wiped the tears from his eyes that he might see where to guide his horse, he ever angrily drove his gig over heaps of stones, as if hoping that he would overturn himself and break one of his limbs.  However, when he reached the long lane that skirted the endless wall of the park, a glimmer of hope broke upon him.  Perhaps Albine was only in a dead faint.  The peasant had told him that she had suffocated herself with flowers.  Ah! if he could only get there in time, if he could only save her!  And he lashed his horse ferociously as though he were lashing himself.

It was a lovely day.  The pavilion was all bathed in sunlight, just as it had been in the fair spring-time.  But the leaves of the ivy which mounted to the roof were spotted and patched with rust, and bees no longer buzzed round the tall gilliflowers.  Doctor Pascal hastily tethered his horse and pushed open the gate of the little garden.  All around still prevailed that perfect silence amidst which Jeanbernat had been wont to smoke his pipe; but, to-day, the old man was no longer seated on his bench watching his lettuces.

‘Jeanbernat!’ called the doctor.

No one answered.  Then, on entering the vestibule, he saw something that he had never seen before.  At the end of the passage, below the dark staircase, was a door opening into the Paradou, and he could see the vast garden spreading there beneath the pale sunlight, with all its autumn melancholy, its sere and yellow foliage.  The doctor hurried through the doorway and took a few steps over the damp grass.

‘Ah! it is you, doctor!’ said Jeanbernat in a calm voice.

The old man was digging a hole at the foot of a mulberry-tree.  He had straightened his tall figure on hearing the approach of footsteps.  But he promptly betook himself to his task again, throwing out at each effort a huge mass of rich soil.

‘What are you doing there?’ asked Doctor Pascal.

Jeanbernat straightened himself again and wiped the sweat off his face with the sleeve of his jacket.  ‘I am digging a hole,’ he answered simply.  ’She always loved the garden, and it will please her to sleep here.’

The doctor nearly choked with emotion.  For a moment he stood by the edge of the grave, incapable of speaking, but watching Jeanbernat as the other sturdily dug on.

‘Where is she?’ he asked at last.

’Up there, in her room.  I left her on the bed.  I should like you to go and listen to her heart before she is put away in here.  I listened myself, but I couldn’t hear anything at all.’