ole frame would quiver with fever. He rose up painfully, displeased
with himself. As a rule, he would leave the altar untroubled in his
flesh and with Mary's sweet breath still fresh upon his brow. That
night, however, as he took the lamp to go up to his room he felt as if
his throbbing temples were bursting. His prayer had not profited him;
after a transient alleviation he still experienced the burning glow
which had been rising in his heart and brain since morning. When he
reached the sacristy door, he turned and mechanically raised the lamp
to take a last look at the tall Virgin. But she was now shrouded in the
deep shadows falling from the rafters, buried in the foliage around her
whence only the golden cross upon her crown emerged.

XV

Abbe Mouret's bedroom, which occupied a corner of the vicarage, was a
spacious one, having two large square windows; one of which opened above
Desiree's farmyard, whilst the other overlooked the village, the valley
beyond, the belt of hills, the whole landscape. The yellow-curtained
bed, the walnut chest of drawers, and the three straw-bottomed chairs
seemed lost below that lofty ceiling with whitewashed joists. A faint
tartness, the somewhat musty odour of old country houses, ascended from
the tiled and ruddled floor that glistened like a mirror. On the chest
of drawers a tall statuette of the Immaculate Conception rose greyly
between some porcelain vases which La Teuse had filled with white lilac.

Abbe Mouret set his lamp on the edge of the chest of drawers before the
Virgin. He felt so unwell that he determined to light the vine-stem fire
which was laid in readiness. He stood there, tongs in hand, watching
the kindling wood, his face illuminated by the flame. The house beneath
slumbered in unbroken stillness. The silence filled his ears with a hum,
which grew into a sound of whispering voices. Slowly and irresistibly
these voices mastered him and increased the feeling of anxiety which
had almost choked him several times that day. What could be the cause of
such mental anguish? What could be the strange trouble which had slowly
grown within him and had now become so unbearable? He had not fallen
into sin. It seemed as if but yesterday he had left the seminary with
all his ardent faith, and so fortified against the world that he moved
among men beholding God alone. And, suddenly, he fancied himself in his
cell at five o'clock in the morning, the hour for rising. The deacon