elded your heart to God. But it has been willed otherwise.
Heaven has its own purposes. Well, since you mistrust the priest, why
should you refuse to confide in the friend?"

"You are right," she faltered. "Yes, I am sad at heart, and need your
consolation. I must tell you of it all. When I was a child I seldom,
if ever, entered a church; now I cannot be present at a service
without feeling touched to the very depths of my being. Yes; and what
drew tears from me just now was that voice of Paris, sounding like a
mighty organ, that immeasurable night, and those beauteous heavens.
Oh! I would fain believe. Help me; teach me."

Abbe Jouve calmed her somewhat by lightly placing his hand on her own.

"Tell me everything," he merely said.

She struggled for a time, her heart wrung with anguish.

"There's nothing to tell, I assure you. I'm hiding nothing from you. I
weep without cause, because I feel stifled, because my tears gush out
of their own accord. You know what my life has been. No sorrow, no
sin, no remorse could I find in it to this hour. I do not know--I do
not know--"

Her voice died away, and from the priest's lips slowly came the words,
"You love, my daughter!"

She started; she dared not protest. Silence fell on them once more. In
the sea of shadows that slumbered before them a light had glimmered
forth. It seemed at their feet, somewhere in the abyss, but at what
precise spot they would have been unable to specify. And then, one by
one, other lights broke through the darkness, shooting into instant
life, and remaining stationary, scintillating like stars. It seemed as
though thousands of fresh planets were rising on the surface of a
gloomy lake. Soon they stretched out in double file, starting from the
Trocadero, and nimbly leaping towards Paris. Then these files were
intersected by others, curves were described, and a huge, strange,
magnificent constellation spread out. Helene never breathed a word,
but gazed on these gleams of light, which made the heavens seemingly
descend below the line of the horizon, as though indeed the earth had
vanished and the vault of heaven were on every side. And Helene's
heart was again flooded with emotion, as a few minutes before when
Charles's-Wain had slowly begun to revolve round the Polar axis, its
shaft in the air. Paris, studded with lights, stretched out, deep and
sad, prompting fearful thoughts of a firmament swarming with unknown
worlds.

Meanwhile the priest,