, and
wharves, and warehouses, stretching along the river banks; but
all this they left on one side as they went along the wide,
tree-planted boulevards, where carriages were rolling, and
lamps lighting, and people walking about in the ruddy glow;
and presently these too were passed by, and they came out on
the dusty high-road. A few scattered houses were still to
their right hand and to their left; but the city, with its
cloud of smoke, its kindling lights and ceaseless movement,
was behind them now. Of all its restless stir no sound reached
them through the soft twilight but the chime of bells from its
many towers, which rang out the evening angelus just as they
saw, standing on the summit of a gentle slope to their left, a
building with steep grey slate roofs and belfry, rising above
low white surrounding walls, and knew that they had reached
their destination.

The carriage-road up to the convent made a circuit, and swept
round to the other side of the little declivity: but in front,
separated from the highroad by a hedge, there was only the
slope of a ploughed field, with a gate at the lower end,
opening on to a narrow path that led straight through it up
the hill; and this path Graham and Madelon followed, to where
it joined a weed-grown footway skirting the outer wall of the
building. There was a garden inside apparently, for trees were
waving their topmost branches overhead, and vines, and
westeria, and Virginia creeper hung down in long, many-
coloured tangled shoots and tendrils over the angle of the
wall outside. A little beyond was a side-door, with a bench
placed beside it; and above, surmounted by a crucifix under a
little pent-house, a narrow shelf on which stood an empty bowl
and spoon, just placed there probably by some wandering
pensioner, who had come there, not in vain, to seek his
evening meal.

"Shall we sit down for a minute and rest?" said Graham.

Madelon seated herself at his side without speaking; she had
been talking fast enough, and not without cheerfulness, during
the early part of her walk; but since they had come within
sight of the convent, her chatter had died away into silence.
Perhaps she was tired, for she sat quite still now, and showed
no wish to resume the conversation. The sound of the city
chimes died away; the little bell in the belfry close by kept
up its sharp monotone for a minute longer, and then it too was
hushed; the trees whispered and rustled, the grasshoppers