would be shattered into dust should
she deign to cast her eyes upon him. She was the Virgin of his days of
weakness, the austere Virgin who restored his inward peace by an awesome
glimpse of Paradise.

That night Abbe Mouret remained for over an hour on his knees in the
empty church. With folded hands and eyes fixed on the golden Virgin
rising planet-like amid the verdure, he sought the drowsiness of
ecstasy, the appeasement of the strange discomfort he had felt that day.
But he failed to find the semi-somnolence of prayer with the delightful
ease he knew so well. However glorious and pure Mary might reveal
herself, her motherhood, the maturity of her charms, and the bare infant
she bore upon her arm, disquieted him. It seemed as if in heaven itself
there were a repetition of the exuberant life, through which he had been
moving since the morning. Like the vines of the stony slopes, like the
trees of the Paradou, like the human troop of Artauds, Mary suggested
the blossoming, the begetting of life. Prayer came but slowly to his
lips; fancies made his mind wander. He perceived things he had never
seen before--the gentle wave of her chestnut hair, the rounded swell of
her rosy throat. She had to assume a sterner air and overwhelm him with
the splendour of her sovereign power to bring him back to the unfinished
sentences of his broken prayer. At last the sight of her golden crown,
her golden mantle, all the golden sheen which made of her a mighty
princess, reduced him once more to slavish submission, and his prayer
again flowed evenly, and his mind became wrapped in worship.

In this ecstatic trance, half asleep, half awake, he remained till
eleven o'clock, heedless of his aching knees, fancying himself suspended
in mid air, rocked to and fro like a child, and yielding to restful
slumber, though conscious of some unknown weight that oppressed his
heart. Meanwhile the church around him filled with shadows, the lamp
grew dim, and the lofty sprays of leafage darkened the tall Virgin's
varnished face.

When the clock, about to strike, gave out a rending whine, a shudder
passed through Abbe Mouret. He had not hitherto felt the chill of the
church upon his shoulders, but now he was shivering from head to foot.
As he crossed himself a memory swiftly flashed through the stupor of his
wakening--the chattering of his teeth recalled to him the nights he had
spent on the floor of his cell before the Sacred Heart of Mary, when his
wh