are losing the habit of talking to each other. We looked at the
latticed and flower-decked square where our aunt sleeps--the garden
which is only as big as a woman. Returning from the cemetery by way of
the fields, the sun already low, we join hands, seized with triumphant
delight.

She is wearing a dress of black delaine, and the skirt, the sleeves and
the collar wave in the breeze. Sometimes she turns her radiant face to
me and it seems to grow still brighter when she looks at me. Slightly
stooping, she walks, though among the grass and flowers whose tints and
grace shine in reflection on her forehead and cheeks, she is a
giantess. A butterfly precedes us on our path and alights under our
eyes, but when we come up it takes wing again, and comes down a little
farther and begins all over again; and we smile at the butterfly that
thinks of us.

Inlaid with gold by the slanting sun we lead each other, hand in hand,
as far as the statue of Flora, which once upon a time a lord of the
manor raised on the fringe of the wood. Against the abiding background
of distant heights the goddess stands, half-naked, in the beautiful
ripe light. Her fair hips are draped with a veil of still whiter
stone, like a linen garment. Before the old moss-mellowed pedestal I
pressed Marie desperately to my heart. Then, in the sacred solitude of
the wood, I put my hands upon her, and so that she might be like the
goddess I unfastened her black bodice, lowered the ribbon
shoulder-straps of her chemise, and laid bare her wide and rounded
bosom.

She yielded to the adoration with lowered head, and her eyes
magnificently troubled, red-flushing with blood and sunshine.

I put my lips on hers. Until that day, whenever I kissed her, her lips
submitted. This time she gave me back my long caress, and even her
eyes closed upon it. Then she stands there with her hands crossed on
her glorious throat, her red, wet lips ajar. She stands there, apart,
yet united to me, and her heart on her lips.

She has covered her bosom again. The breeze is suddenly gusty. The
apple trees in the orchards are shaken and scatter bird-like jetsam in
space; and in that bright green paddock yonder the rows of out-hung
linen dance in the sunshine. The sky darkens; the wind rises and
prevails. It was that very day of the gale. It assaults our two
bodies on the flank of the hill; it comes out of infinity and sets
roaring the tawny forest foliage. We can see its