se rocks. You'll see the plants which make me quake; you'll see the
springs, such a shower of water! What fun it will be to feel the spray
all over our faces!... But if you prefer to walk along the hedges,
beside a brook, we must go round by the meadows. It is so nice under
the willows in the evening, at sunset. One can lie down on the grass and
watch the little green frogs hopping about on the rushes.'

'No, no,' said Serge, 'you weary me, I don't want to go so far.... I
will only go a couple of steps, that will be more than enough.'

'Even I,' she still continued, 'even I have not yet been able to go
everywhere. There are many nooks I don't know. I have walked and walked
in it for years, and still I feel sure there are unknown spots around,
places where the shade must be cooler and the turf softer. Listen, I
have always fancied there must be one especially in which I should like
to live for ever. I know it's somewhere; I must have passed it by, or
perhaps it's hidden so far away that I have never even got as far, with
all my rambles. But we'll look for it together, Serge, won't we? and
live there.'

'No, no, be quiet,' stammered the young man. 'I don't understand what
you are saying. You're killing me.'

For a moment she let him sob in her arms. It troubled and grieved her
that she could find no words to soothe him.

'Isn't the Paradou as beautiful, then, as you fancied it?' she asked at
last.

He raised his face and answered:

'I don't know. It was quite little, and now it is ever growing bigger
and bigger---- Take me away, hide me.'

She led him back to bed, soothing him like a child, lulling him with a
fib.

'There, there! it's not true, there is no garden. It was only a story
that I told you. Go, sleep in peace.'

V

Every day in this wise she made him sit at the window during the cool
hours of morning. He would now attempt to take a few steps, leaning the
while on the furniture. A rosy tint appeared upon his cheeks, and his
hands began to lose their waxy transparency. But, while he thus regained
health, his senses remained in a state of stupor which reduced him to
the vegetative life of some poor creature born only the day before.
Indeed, he was nothing but a plant; his sole perception was that of
the air which floated round him. He lacked the blood necessary for
the efforts of life, and remained, as it were, clinging to the soil,
imbibing all the sap he could. It was like a slow hatching in t