of the shepherds in antique Chaldea.

It was favorable also and tempting for lovers, that tepid period which
followed the full moon of March, for it was dark everywhere around the
houses, dark in all the paths domed with trees,--and very dark, behind
the Detcharry orchard, on the abandoned path where nobody ever passed.

Gracieuse lived more and more on her bench in front of her door.

It was here that she was seated, as every year, to receive and look at
the carnival dancers: those groups of young boys and of young girls of
Spain or of France, who, every spring, organize themselves for several
days in a wandering band, and, all dressed in the same pink or white
colors, traverse the frontier village, dancing the fandango in front of
houses, with castanets--

She stayed later and later in this place which she liked, under the
shelter of the rose-laurel coming into bloom, and sometimes even, she
came out noiselessly through the window, like a little, sly fox, to
breathe there at length, after her mother had gone to bed. Ramuntcho
knew this and, every night, the thought of that bench troubled his
sleep.

CHAPTER XI.

One clear April morning, they were walking to the church, Gracieuse and
Ramuntcho. She, with an air half grave, half mocking, with a particular
and very odd air, leading him there to make him do a penance which she
had ordered.

In the holy enclosure, the flowerbeds of the tombs were coming into
bloom again, as also the rose bushes on the walls. Once more the new
saps were awakening above the long sleep of the dead. They went in
together, through the lower door, into the empty church, where the old
"benoite" in a black mantilla was alone, dusting the altars.

When Gracieuse had given to Ramuntcho the holy water and they had made
their signs of the cross, she led him through the sonorous nave, paved
with funereal stones, to a strange image on the wall, in a shady corner,
under the men's tribunes.

It was a painting, impregnated with ancient mysticism, representing the
figure of Jesus with eyes closed, forehead bloody, expression lamentable
and dead; the head seemed to be cut off, separated from the body,
and placed there on a gray linen cloth. Above, were written the long
Litanies of the Holy Face, which have been composed, as everybody knows,
to be recited in penance by repentant blasphemers. The day before,
Ramuntcho, in anger, had sworn in an ugly manner: a quite unimaginable
string of words,