whole tragic love adventure of her cousin the Abbe Serge Mouret, then
rector of Les Artauds, with an adorable young girl of a wild and
passionate nature who lived at Le Paradou.

Returning by the same road Clotilde stopped, and pointing to the vast,
melancholy expanse of stubble fields, cultivated plains, and fallow
land, said:

"Master, was there not once there a large garden? Did you not tell me
some story about it?"

"Yes, yes; Le Paradou, an immense garden--woods, meadows, orchards,
parterres, fountains, and brooks that flowed into the Viorne. A garden
abandoned for an age; the garden of the Sleeping Beauty, returned to
Nature's rule. And as you see they have cut down the woods, and
cleared and leveled the ground, to divide it into lots, and sell it by
auction. The springs themselves have dried up. There is nothing there
now but that fever-breeding marsh. Ah, when I pass by here, it makes
my heart ache!"

She ventured to question him further:

"But was it not in Le Paradou that my cousin Serge and your great
friend Albine fell in love with each other?"

He had forgotten her presence. He went on talking, his gaze fixed on
space, lost in recollections of the past.

"Albine, my God! I can see her now, in the sunny garden, like a great,
fragrant bouquet, her head thrown back, her bosom swelling with joy,