-

"The gentleman, no doubt, does not belong to these parts? The gentleman
would like to see the curiosities of the church?"

"No!" said the other.

And he first went round the lower aisles. Then he went out to look at
the Place. Emma was not coming yet. He went up again to the choir.

The nave was reflected in the full fonts with the beginning of the
arches and some portions of the glass windows. But the reflections of
the paintings, broken by the marble rim, were continued farther on upon
the flag-stones, like a many-coloured carpet. The broad daylight from
without streamed into the church in three enormous rays from the three
opened portals. From time to time at the upper end a sacristan passed,
making the oblique genuflexion of devout persons in a hurry. The crystal
lustres hung motionless. In the choir a silver lamp was burning, and
from the side chapels and dark places of the church sometimes rose
sounds like sighs, with the clang of a closing grating, its echo
reverberating under the lofty vault.

Leon with solemn steps walked along by the walls. Life had never seemed
so good to him. She would come directly, charming, agitated, looking
back at the glances that followed her, and with her flounced dress, her
gold eyeglass, her thin shoes, with all sorts of elegant trifles that he
had never enjoyed, and with the ineffable seduction of yielding virtue.
The church like a huge boudoir spread around her; the arches bent down
to gather in the shade the confession of her love; the windows shone
resplendent to illumine her face, and the censers would burn that she
might appear like an angel amid the fumes of the sweet-smelling odours.

But she did not come. He sat down on a chair, and his eyes fell upon a
blue stained window representing boatmen carrying baskets. He looked at
it long, attentively, and he counted the scales of the fishes and the
button-holes of the doublets, while his thoughts wandered off towards
Emma.

The beadle, standing aloof, was inwardly angry at this individual who
took the liberty of admiring the cathedral by himself. He seemed to him
to be conducting himself in a monstrous fashion, to be robbing him in a
sort, and almost committing sacrilege.

But a rustle of silk on the flags, the tip of a bonnet, a lined
cloak--it was she! Leon rose and ran to meet her.

Emma was pale. She walked fast.

"Read!" she said, holding out a paper to him. "Oh, no!"

And she abruptly withdrew her hand to en