were sacrilege, and his refusal
strengthened Miette's fancies with regard to the dear phantom which bore
her name. She positively insisted that the girl had died young, as
she was, and in the very midst of her love. She even began to pity the
stone, that stone which she climbed so nimbly, and on which they had
sat so often, a stone which death had chilled, and which their love had
warmed again.

"You'll see, this tombstone will bring us misfortune," she added. "If
you were to die, I should come and lie here, and then I should like to
have this stone set over my body."

At this, Silvere, choking with emotion, scolded her for thinking of such
mournful things.

And so, for nearly two years, their love grew alike in the narrow
pathway and the open country. Their idyll passed through the chilling
rains of December and the burning solicitations of July, free from all
touch of impurity, ever retaining the sweet charm of some old Greek
love-tale, all the naive hesitancy of youth which desires but knows not.
In vain did the long-departed dead whisper in their ears. They carried
nothing away from the old cemetery but emotional melancholy and a vague
presentiment of a short life. A voice seemed to whisper to them that
they would depart amidst their virginal love, long ere the bridal day
would give them wholly to each other. It was there, on the tombstone and
among the bones that lay hidden beneath the rank grass, that they had
first come to indulge in that longing for death, that eager desire to
sleep together in the earth, that now set them stammering and sighing
beside the Orcheres road, on that December night, while the two bells
repeated their mournful warnings to one another.

Miette was sleeping calmly, with her head resting on Silvere's chest
while he mused upon their past meeting, their lovely years of unbroken
happiness. At daybreak the girl awoke. The valley now spread out clearly
under the bright sky. The sun was still behind the hills, but a stream
of crystal light, limpid and cold as spring-water, flowed from the
pale horizon. In the distance, the Viorne, like a white satin ribbon,
disappeared among an expanse of red and yellow land. It was a boundless
vista, with grey seas of olive-trees, and vineyards that looked like
huge pieces of striped cloth. The whole country was magnified by the
clearness of the atmosphere and the peaceful cold. However, sharp gusts
of wind chilled the young people's faces. And thereupon