'it is too shabby for anything, now that
the high altar is so smart. It looks as though it had never been painted
at all. However much I may rub it of a morning, the dust sticks to it.
It is quite black; it is filthy. Do you know what people will say about
you, your reverence? They will say that you care nothing for the Blessed
Virgin; that's what they'll say.'

'Well, what of it?' queried Brother Archangias.

La Teuse looked at him, half suffocated by indignation.

'What of it? It would be sinful, of course,' she muttered. 'This altar
is like a neglected tomb in a graveyard. If it were not for me, the
spiders would spin their webs across it, and moss would soon grow over
it. From time to time, when I can spare a bunch of flowers, I give it to
the Virgin. All the flowers in our garden used to be for her once.'

She had mounted the altar steps, and she took up two withered bunches of
flowers, which had been left there, forgotten.

'See! it is just as it is in the graveyards,' she said, throwing the
flowers at Abbe Mouret's feet.

He picked them up, without replying. It was quite dark now, and Brother
Archangias stumbled about amongst the chairs and nearly fell. He growled
and muttered some angry words, in which the names of Jesus and Mary
recurred. When La Teuse, who had gone for a lamp, returned into the
church, she asked the priest:

'So I can put the brushes and pots away in the attic, then?'

'Yes,' he answered. 'I have finished. We will see about the rest later
on.'

She walked away in front of them, carrying all the things with her, and
keeping silence, lest she should say too much. And as Abbe Mouret had
kept the withered bunches of flowers in his hand, Brother Archangias
said to him, as they passed the farmyard: 'Throw those things away.'

The Abbe took a few steps more, with downcast head; and then over the
palings he flung the flowers upon a manure-heap.

V

The Brother, who had already had his own meal, seated himself astride a
chair, while the priest dined. Since Serge's return to Les Artaud, the
Brother had thus spent most of his evenings at the parsonage; but never
before had he imposed his presence upon the other in so rough a fashion.
He stamped on the tiled floor with his heavy boots, his voice thundered
and he smote the furniture, whilst he related how he had whipped some of
his pupils that morning, or expounded his moral principles in terms
as stern, as uncompromising as bludgeon-b