heavens; it overtopped the stars.

Abbe Mouret was filled with the mad joy of an accursed spirit at the
sight before him. The church was vanquished; God no longer had a house.
And thenceforward God could no longer trouble him. He was free to rejoin
Albine, since it was she who triumphed. He laughed at himself for having
declared, an hour previously, that the church would swallow up the
whole earth with its shadow. The earth, indeed, had avenged itself
by consuming the church. The mad laughter into which he broke had
the effect of suddenly awakening him from his hallucination. He
gazed stupidly round the nave, which the evening shadows were slowly
darkening. Through the windows he could see patches of star-spangled
sky; and he was about to stretch out his arms to feel the walls, when he
heard Desiree calling to him from the vestry-passage:

'Serge! Serge! Are you there? Why don't you answer? I have been looking
for you for this last half-hour.'

She came in; she was holding a lighted lamp; and the priest then saw
that the church was still standing. He could no longer understand
anything, but remained in a horrible state of doubt betwixt the
unconquerable church, springing up again from its ashes, and Albine, the
all-powerful, who could shake the very throne of God by a single breath.

X

Desiree came up to him, full of merry chatter.

'Are you there? Are you there?' she cried. 'Why are you playing at
hide-and-seek? I called out to you at the top of my voice at least a
dozen times. I thought you must have gone out.'

She pried into all the gloomy corners with an inquisitive glance, and
even stepped up to the confessional-box, as though she had expected
to surprise some one hiding there. Then she came back to Serge,
disappointed, and continued:

'So you are quite alone? Have you been asleep? What amusement do you
find in shutting yourself up all alone in the dark? Come along; it is
time we went to dinner.'

The Abbe drew his feverish hands across his brow to wipe away the traces
of the thoughts which he feared were plain for all the world to read. He
fumbled mechanically at the buttons of his cassock, which seemed to him
all disarranged. Then he followed his sister with stern-set face and
never a sign of emotion, stiffened by that priestly energy which throws
the dignity of sacerdotalism like a veil over the agonies of the flesh.
Desiree did not even suspect that there was anything the matter with
him. She