f the
pillaging sparrows as they fluttered in his garden.

There was a movement by his side, and he felt, close to his flesh, the
burning flesh of Veronica; she was awake and looking at him with a smile.
She felt no remorse; she was proud and happy, and her eyes burning with
pleasure and want of sleep were fixed on her new lover with restless
curiosity.

[PLATE IV: MATER SAEVA CUPIDINUM. ...he sprang out of bed, surfeited with
disgust.... And she rose also, and ran off to her room, laughing like a
madcap, and carrying her dress and petticoats under her arm.]

[Illustration]

Doubtless she was saying to herself: "Is it really possible? Am I then in
bed with this handsome priest? Is my dream then realised?"

And to assure herself that she was not dreaming, that she was really in the
Cure of Althausen's bed, she spoke to him in mincing tones:

--You say nothing, my handsome master. You seem to be dejected. What! you
are not tired out already?

And she put out her hand to give him a caress. But he sprang out of bed,
surfeited with disgust.

--Ah, true, she said, happiness makes us forgetful. I was forgetting your
Mass.

And she rose also, and ran off to her room, laughing like a madcap, and
carrying her dress and petticoats under her arm.

LV.

IN THE FOOT-PATH.

"'Tis the comer blest where God's creatures dwell,
The wild birds' haunt and the dragon-fly's home,
Where the queen-bee flies when she leaves her cell,
Where Spring in the verdant glades doth roam."

CAMILLE DELTHIL (_Les Rustiques_).

"Abomination of abomination!" murmured Marcel, and he went out in haste; he
would not remain another minute in that cursed house. It seemed to him that
the walls of his room reeked of debauchery, and that everything there was
impregnated with the odour of foul orgies.

He went out of the village, unconscious of his road, like a hunted
criminal; he tried to escape from himself, for that harsh officer, remorse,
had laid vigorous hold of his conscience. Be followed at random the
foot-paths, lined by gardens by which he had passed so many times with
placid brow and a clean heart; he walked on, he walked on, with bare head,
and blank and haggard eyes, thinking of nothing but his crime, seeing
nothing, hearing nothing, not oven the bell which summoned him to his
morning Mass, as it cheerfully filled the air with its silver notes.

The morning was as bright as the face of a bride. May was shedding its