Miette was sleeping calmly, with her head resting on Silvere’s chest while he mused upon their past meeting, their lovely years of unbroken happiness.  At daybreak the girl awoke.  The valley now spread out clearly under the bright sky.  The sun was still behind the hills, but a stream of crystal light, limpid and cold as spring-water, flowed from the pale horizon.  In the distance, the Viorne, like a white satin ribbon, disappeared among an expanse of red and yellow land.  It was a boundless vista, with grey seas of olive-trees, and vineyards that looked like huge pieces of striped cloth.  The whole country was magnified by the clearness of the atmosphere and the peaceful cold.  However, sharp gusts of wind chilled the young people’s faces.  And thereupon they sprang to their feet, cheered by the sight of the clear morning.  Their melancholy forebodings had vanished with the darkness, and they gazed with delight at the immense expanse of the plain, and listened to the tolling of the two bells that now seemed to be joyfully ringing in a holiday.

“Ah!  I’ve had a good sleep!” Miette cried.  “I dreamt you were kissing me.  Tell me now, did you kiss me?”

“It’s very possible,” Silvere replied laughing.  “I was not very warm.  It is bitterly cold.”

“I only feel cold in the feet,” Miette rejoined.

“Well! let us have a run,” said Silvere.  “We have still two good leagues to go.  You will get warm.”

Thereupon they descended the hill and ran until they reached the high road.  When they were below they raised their heads as if to say farewell to that rock on which they had wept while their kisses burned their lips.  But they did not again speak of that ardent embrace which had thrilled them so strongly with vague, unknown desire.  Under the pretext of walking more quickly they did not even take each other’s arm.  They experienced some slight confusion when they looked at one another, though why they could not tell.  Meantime the dawn was rising around them.  The young man, who had sometimes been sent to Orcheres by his master, knew all the shortest cuts.  Thus they walked on for more than two leagues, along dingle paths by the side of interminable ledges and walls.  Now and again Miette accused Silvere of having taken her the wrong way; for, at times—­for a quarter of an hour at a stretch—­they lost all sight of the surrounding country, seeing above the walls and hedges nothing but long rows of almond-trees whose slender branches showed sharply against the pale sky.

All at once, however, they came out just in front of Orcheres.  Loud cries of joy, the shouting of a crowd, sounded clearly in the limpid air.  The insurrectionary forces were only now entering the town.  Miette and Silvere went in with the stragglers.  Never had they seen such enthusiasm.  To judge from the streets, one would have thought it was a procession day, when the windows are decked with the finest drapery to honour the passage of the Canopy.