their heads approvingly at each deeper and deeper note that came from the rural guard. Filtering through the paper window panes the full morning sun lighted up the brightly painted walls, on which the women's caps cast shadows resembling huge butterflies. The artificial flowers, with which the altar was decorated, almost seemed to possess the moist freshness of natural ones newly gathered; and when the priest turned round to bless the congregation, he felt even stronger emotion than before, as he saw his church so clean, so full, and so steeped in music and incense and light.
After the offertory, however, a buzzing murmur sped through the peasant women. Vincent inquisitively turned his head, and in doing so, almost let the charcoal in his censer fall upon the priest's chasuble. And, wishing to excuse himself, as he saw the Abbe looking at him with an expression of reproof, he murmured: 'It is your reverence's uncle, who has just come in.'
At the end of the church, standing beside one of the slender wooden pillars that supported the gallery, Abbe Mouret then perceived Doctor Pascal. The doctor was not wearing his usual cheerful and slightly scoffing expression. Hat in hand, he stood there looking very grave, and followed the service with evident impatience. The sight of the priest at the altar, his solemn demeanour, his slow gestures, and the perfect serenity of his countenance, appeared to gradually increase his irritation. He could not stay there till the end of the mass, but left the church, and walked up and down beside his horse and gig, which he had secured to one of the parsonage shutters.
'Will that nephew of mine never have finished censing himself?' he asked of La Teuse, who was just coming out of the vestry.
'It is all over,' she replied. 'Won't you come into the drawing-room? His reverence is unrobing. He knows you are here.'
'Well, unless he were blind, he couldn't very well help it,' growled the doctor, as he followed La Teuse into the cold-looking, stiffly furnished chamber, which she pompously called the drawing-room. Here for a few minutes he paced up and down. The gloomy coldness of his surroundings seemed to increase his irritation. As he strode about, flourishing a stick he carried, he kept on striking the well-worn chair-seats of horsehair which sounded hard and dead as stone. Then, tired of walking, he took his stand in front of the mantelpiece, in the centre of which a gaudily painted image of Saint Joseph occupied the place of a clock.
'Ah! here he comes at last,' he said, as he heard the door opening. And stepping towards the Abbe he went on: 'Do you know that you made me listen to half a mass? It is a very long time since that happened to me. But I was bent on seeing you to-day. I have something to say to you.'
Then he stopped, and looked at the priest with an expression of surprise. Silence fell. 'You at all events are quite well,' he resumed, in a different voice.
'Yes, I am very much better than I was,' replied Abbe Mouret, with a smile. 'I did not expect you before Thursday. Sunday isn't your day for coming. Is there something you want to tell me?'
Uncle Pascal did not give an immediate answer. He went on looking at the Abbe. The latter was still fresh from the influence of the church and the mass. His hair was fragrant with the perfume of the incense, and in his eyes shone all the joy of the Cross. His uncle jogged his head, as he noticed that expression of triumphant peace.
'I have come from the Paradou,' he said, abruptly. 'Jeanbernat came to fetch me there. I have seen Albine, and she disquiets me. She needs much careful treatment.'
He kept his eyes fixed upon the priest as he spoke, but he did not detect so much as a quiver of Serge's eyelids.
'She took great care of you, you know,' he added, more roughly. 'Without her, my boy, you might now be in one of the cells at Les Tulettes, with a strait waistcoat on. . . . Well, I promised that you would go to see her. I will take you with me. It will be a farewell meeting. She is anxious to go away.'
'I can do nothing more than pray for the person of whom you speak,' said Abbe Mouret, softly.
And as the doctor, losing his temper, brought his stick down heavily upon the couch, he added calmly, but in a firm voice:
'I am a priest, and can only help with prayers.'
'Ah, well! Yes, you are right,' said Uncle Pascal, dropping down into an armchair, 'it is I who am an old fool. Yes, I wept like a child, as I came here alone in my gig. That is what comes of living amongst books. One learns a lot from them, but one makes a fool of oneself in the world. How could I guess that it would all turn out so badly?'
He rose from his chair and began to walk about again, looking exceedingly troubled.
'But yes, but yes, I ought to have guessed. It was all quite natural. Though with one in your position, it was bound to be abominable! You are not as other men. But listen to me, I assure you that otherwise you would never have recovered. It was she alone, with the atmosphere she set round you, who saved you from madness. There is no need for me to tell you what a state you were in. It is one of my most wonderful cures. But I can't take any pride, any pleasure in it, for now the poor girl is dying of it!'
Abbe Mouret remained there erect, perfectly calm, his face reflecting all the quiet serenity of a martyr whom nothing that man might do could disturb.
'God will take mercy upon her,' he said.
'God! God!' muttered the doctor below his breath. 'Ah! He would do better not to interfere. We might manage matters if we were left to ourselves.' Then, raising his voice, he added: 'I thought I had considered everything carefully, that is the most wonderful part of it. Oh! what a fool I was! You would stay there, I thought, for a month to recover your strength. The shade of the trees, the cheerful chatter of the girl, all the youthfulness about you would quickly bring you round. And then you, on your side, it seemed to me, would do something to reclaim the poor child from her wild ways; you would civilise her, and, between us, we should turn her into a young lady, for whom we should, by-and-by, find a suitable husband. It seemed such a perfect scheme. And then how was I to guess that old philosophising Jeanbernat would never stir an inch from his lettuce-beds? Well! well! I myself never left my own laboratory. I had such pressing work there. . . . And it is all my fault! Ah! I am a stupid bungler!'
He was choking, and wished to go off. And he began to look about him for his hat, though, all the while, he had it on his head.
'Good-bye!' he stammered; 'I am going. So you won't come? Do, now-for my sake! You see how miserable, how upset I am. I swear to you that she shall go away immediately afterwards. That is all settled. My gig is here; you might be back in an hour. Come, do come, I beg you.'
The priest made a sweeping gesture; such a gesture as the doctor had seen him make before the altar.
'No,' he said, 'I cannot.'
Then, as he accompanied his uncle out of the room, he added:
'Tell her to fall on her knees and pray to God. God will hear her as He heard me, and He will comfort her as He has comforted me. There is no other means of salvation.'
The doctor looked him full in the face, and shrugged his shoulders.
'Good-bye, then,' he repeated. 'You are quite well now, and have no further need of me.'
But, as he was unfastening his horse, Desiree, who had heard his voice, came running up. She was extremely attached to her uncle. When she had been younger he had been wont to listen to her childish prattle for hours without showing the least sign of weariness. And, even now, he did his best to spoil her, and manifested the greatest interest in her farmyard, often spending a whole afternoon with her amongst her fowls and ducks, and smiling at her with his bright eyes. He seemed to consider her superior to other girls. And so she now flung herself round his neck, in an impulse of affection, and cried:
'Aren't you going to stay and have some lunch with us?'
But having kissed her, he said he could not remain, and unfastened her arms from his neck with a somewhat pettish air. She laughed however, and again clasped her arms round him.
'Oh! but you must,' she persisted. 'I have some eggs that have only just been laid. I have been looking in the nests, and there are fourteen eggs this morning. And, if you will stay, we can have a fowl, the white one, that is always quarrelling with the others. When you were here on Thursday, you know, it pecked the big spotted hen's eye out.'
But her uncle persisted in his refusal. He was irritated to find that he could not unfasten the knot in which he had tied his reins. And then she began to skip round him, clapping her hands and repeating in a sing-song voice: 'Yes! yes! you'll stay, and we will eat it up, we'll eat it up!'
Her uncle could no longer resist her blandishments; he raised his head and smiled at her. She seemed so full of
