happy in her flowers, with wild flowers braided among her blond
tresses, fastened at her throat, on her corsage, around her slender,
bare brown arms. And I can see her again, after she had asphyxiated
herself; dead in the midst of her flowers; very white, sleeping with
folded hands, and a smile on her lips, on her couch of hyacinths and
tuberoses. Dead for love; and how passionately Albine and Serge loved
each other, in the great garden their tempter, in the bosom of Nature
their accomplice! And what a flood of life swept away all false bonds,
and what a triumph of life!"

Clotilde, she too troubled by this passionate flow of murmured words,
gazed at him intently. She had never ventured to speak to him of
another story that she had heard--the story of the one love of his
life--a love which he had cherished in secret for a lady now dead. It
was said that he had attended her for a long time without ever so much
as venturing to kiss the tips of her fingers. Up to the present, up to
near sixty, study and his natural timidity had made him shun women.
But, notwithstanding, one felt that he was reserved for some great
passion, with his feelings still fresh and ardent, in spite of his
white hair.

"And the girl that died, the girl they mourned," she resumed, her
voice trembling, her cheeks scarlet, without knowing why. "Serge did
not love her, then, since he let her die?"

Pascal started as though awakening from a dream, seeing her beside him
in her youthful beauty, with her large, clear eyes shining under the
shadow of her broad-brimmed hat. Something had happened; the same
breath of life had passed through them both; they did not take each
other's arms again. They walked side by side.