earth, with the vast heavens
above it, had penetrated into her being. At the least sound her hands
burned and her eyes tried to pierce the darkness. Was the wonderful
event about to take place, the prodigy she awaited? No, there was
nothing yet. It was probably merely the beating of the wings of a night
bird. And she listened again, attentively, until she could distinguish
the difference of sound between the leaves of the elms and the willows.
At least twenty times she trembled violently when a little stone rolled
in the rivulet, or a prowling animal jumped over the wall. She leaned
forward; but there was nothing--still nothing.

At last, after some days, when at night a warmer darkness fell from the
sky where no moon was visible, a change began. She felt it, but it was
so slight, so almost imperceptible, she feared that she might have been
mistaken in the little sound she heard, which seemed unlike the usual
noises she knew so well. She held her breath, as the sound seemed
very long in returning. At last it came again, louder than before, but
equally confused. She would have said it came from a great distance,
that it was a scarcely-defined step, and that the trembling of the air
announced the approach of something out of sight and out of hearing.
That which she was expecting came slowly from the invisible slight
movement of what surrounded her. Little by little it disengaged itself
from her dream, like a realisation of the vague longings of her youth.
Was it the Saint George of the chapel window, who had come down from his
place and was walking on the grass in silence towards her? Just then,
by chance, the altar-light was dimmed, so that she could not distinguish
the faintest outline of the figures on the painted glass, but all seemed
like a blue cloud of vapoury mist. That was all she heard or learned at
that time of the mystery.

But on the morrow, at the same hour, by a like obscurity, the noise
increased and approached a little nearer. It was certainly the sound of
steps, of real steps, which walked upon the earth. They would stop for a
moment, then recommence here and there, moving up and down, without her
being able to say precisely where they were. Perhaps they came from
the garden of the Voincourts, where some night pedestrian was lingering
under the trees. Or it might be, rather, that they were in the tufted
masses of the great lilac-bushes of the park of the Bishop, whose strong
perfume made her almost ill