One evening when the window was open, and she, sitting by it, had been
watching Lestiboudois, the beadle, trimming the box, she suddenly heard
the Angelus ringing.

It was the beginning of April, when the primroses are in bloom, and a
warm wind blows over the flower-beds newly turned, and the gardens, like
women, seem to be getting ready for the summer fetes. Through the bars
of the arbour and away beyond, the river seen in the fields, meandering
through the grass in wandering curves. The evening vapours rose between
the leafless poplars, touching their outlines with a violet tint, paler
and more transparent than a subtle gauze caught athwart their branches.
In the distance cattle moved about; neither their steps nor their lowing
could be heard; and the bell, still ringing through the air, kept up its
peaceful lamentation.

With this repeated tinkling the thoughts of the young woman lost
themselves in old memories of her youth and school-days. She remembered
the great candlesticks that rose above the vases full of flowers on the
altar, and the tabernacle with its small columns. She would have liked
to be once more lost in the long line of white veils, marked off here
and there by the stuff black hoods of the good sisters bending over
their prie-Dieu. At mass on Sundays, when she looked up, she saw the
gentle face of the Virgin amid the blue smoke of the rising incense.
Then she was moved; she felt herself weak and quite deserted, like the
down of a bird whirled by the tempest, and it was unconsciously that she
went towards the church, included to no matter what devotions, so that
her soul was absorbed and all existence lost in it.

On the Place she met Lestivoudois on his way back, for, in order not