split
masonry. The spot was like a little ravined, hillocky wilderness of
sterile rocks, draped with rude vegetation, clinging creepers that
twined and twisted through every crevice like green serpents. The young
folks amused themselves by wandering across this chaos, groping about in
the holes, turning over the debris, trying to reconstruct something
of the past out of the ruins before them. They did not confess their
curiosity as they chased one another through the midst of fallen
floorings and overturned partitions; but they were indeed, all the time,
secretly pondering over the legend of those ruins, and of that lady,
lovelier than day, whose silken skirt had rustled down those steps,
where now lizards alone were idly crawling.

Serge ended by climbing the highest of the ruinous masses; and, looking
round at the park which unfolded its vast expanse of greenery, he sought
the grey form of the pavilion through the trees. Albine was standing
silent by his side, serious once more.

'The pavilion is yonder, to the right,' she said at last, without
waiting for Serge to ask her. 'It is the only one of the buildings
that is left. You can see it quite plainly at the end of that grove of
lime-trees.'

They fell into silence again; and then Albine, as though pursuing aloud
the reflections which were passing through their minds, exclaimed: 'When
he went to see her, he must have gone down yonder path, then past those
big chestnut trees, and then under the limes. It wouldn't take him a
quarter of an hour.'

Serge made no reply. But as they went home, they took the path which
Albine had pointed out, past the chestnuts and under the limes. It was a
path that love had consecrated. And as they walked over the grass, they
seemed to be seeking footmarks, or a fallen knot of ribbon, or a whiff
of ancient perfume--something that would clearly satisfy them that they
were really travelling along the path that led to the joy of union.

'Wait out here,' said Albine, when they once more stood before the
pavilion; 'don't come up for three minutes.'

Then she ran off merrily, and shut herself up in the room with the blue
ceiling. And when she had let Serge knock at the door twice, she softly
set it ajar, and received him with an old-fashioned courtesy.

'Good morrow, my dear lord,' she said as she embraced him.

This amused them extremely. They played at being lovers with childish
glee. In stammering accents they would have revived the