Then the young people, having leant against the parapet of the bridge, gazed beneath them.  The Viorne, swollen by the rains, flowed on with a dull, continuous sound.  Up and down stream, despite the darkness which filled the hollows, they perceived the black lines of the trees growing on the banks; here and there glided the moonbeams, casting a trail of molten metal, as it were, over the water, which glittered and danced like rays of light on the scales of some live animal.  The gleams darted with a mysterious charm along the gray torrent, betwixt the vague phantom-like foliage.  You might have thought this an enchanted valley, some wondrous retreat where a community of shadows and gleams lived a fantastic life.

This part of the river was familiar to the lovers; they had often come here in search of coolness on warm July nights; they had spent hours hidden among the clusters of willows on the right bank, at the spot where the meadows of Sainte-Claire spread their verdant carpet to the waterside.  They remembered every bend of the bank, the stones on which they had stepped in order to cross the Viorne, at that season as narrow as a brooklet, and certain little grassy hollows where they had indulged in their dreams of love.  Miette, therefore, now gazed from the bridge at the right bank of the torrent with longing eyes.

“If it were warmer,” she sighed, “we might go down and rest awhile before going back up the hill.”  Then, after a pause, during which she kept her eyes fixed on the banks, she resumed:  “Look down there, Silvere, at that black mass yonder in front of the lock.  Do you remember?  That’s the brushwood where we sat last Corpus Christi Day.”

“Yes, so it is,” replied Silvere, softly.

This was the spot where they had first ventured to kiss each other on the cheek.  The remembrance just roused by the girl’s words brought both of them a delightful feeling, an emotion in which the joys of the past mingled with the hopes of the morrow.  Before their eyes, with the rapidity of lightening, there passed all the delightful evenings they had spent together, especially that evening of Corpus Christi Day, with the warm sky, the cool willows of the Viorne, and their own loving talk.  And at the same time, whilst the past came back to their hearts full of a delightful savour, they fancied they could plunge into the unknown future, see their dreams realised, and march through life arm in arm—­even as they had just been doing on the highway—­warmly wrapped in the same cloak.  Then rapture came to them again, and they smiled in each other’s eyes, alone amidst all the silent radiance.

Suddenly, however, Silvere raised his head and, throwing off the cloak, listened attentively.  Miette, in her surprise, imitated him, at a loss to understand why he had started so abruptly from her side.