But the lovers did not concern themselves much with what went on in the Aire Saint-Mittre; they hastened back into their own little privacy, and again walked along their favourite retired path.  Little did they care for others, or for the town itself!  The few planks which separated them from the wicked world seemed to them, after a while, an insurmountable rampart.  They were so secluded, so free in this nook, situated though it was in the very midst of the Faubourg, at only fifty paces from the Rome Gate, that they sometimes fancied themselves far away in some hollow of the Viorne, with the open country around them.  Of all the sounds which reached them, only one made them feel uneasy, that of the clocks striking slowly in the darkness.  At times, when the hour sounded, they pretended not to hear, at other moments they stopped short as if to protest.  However, they could not go on for ever taking just another ten minutes, and so the time came when they were at last obliged to say good-night.  Then Miette reluctantly climbed upon the wall again.  But all was not ended yet, they would linger over their leave-taking for a good quarter of an hour.  When the girl had climbed upon the wall, she remained there with her elbows on the coping, and her feet supported by the branches of the mulberry-tree, which served her as a ladder.  Silvere, perched on the tombstone, was able to take her hands again, and renew their whispered conversation.  They repeated “till to-morrow!” a dozen times, and still and ever found something more to say.  At last Silvere began to scold.

“Come, you must get down, it is past midnight.”

But Miette, with a girl’s waywardness, wished him to descend first; she wanted to see him go away.  And as he persisted in remaining, she ended by saying abruptly, by way of punishment, perhaps:  “Look!  I am going to jump down.”

Then she sprang from the mulberry-tree, to the great consternation of Silvere.  He heard the dull thud of her fall, and the burst of laughter with which she ran off, without choosing to reply to his last adieu.  For some minutes he would remain watching her vague figure as it disappeared in the darkness, then, slowly descending, he regained the Impasse Saint-Mittre.

During two years they came to the path every day.  At the time of their first meetings they enjoyed some beautiful warm nights.  They might almost have fancied themselves in the month of May, the month of seething sap, when a pleasant odour of earth and fresh leaves pervades the warm air.  This renouveau, this second spring, was like a gift from heaven which allowed them to run freely about the path and tighten their bonds of affection.