ones always
about our knees. You will be happy so, won't you? Speak to me; tell me
that you will then feel warm again, and will smile, and feel no regrets
for anything you have left behind.'

But Serge continued:

'I have often thought of the stone-saints that have been censed in their
niches for centuries past. They must have become quite saturated with
incense; and I am like one of them. I have the fragrance of incense
in the inmost parts of my being. It is that embalmment that gives me
serenity, deathlike tranquillity of body, and the peace which I enjoy in
no longer living.... Ah! may nothing ever disturb my quiescence! May I
ever remain cold and rigid, with a ceaseless smile on my granite lips,
incapable of descending among men! That is my one, my only desire!'

At this Albine sprang to her feet, exasperated, threatening. She shook
Serge and cried:

'What are you saying? What is it you are dreaming aloud? Am I not your
wife? Haven't you come here to be my husband?'

He recoiled, trembling yet more violently.

'No! Leave me! I am afraid!' he faltered.

'But our life together, our happiness, the children we shall have?'

'No, no; I am afraid.' And he broke out into a supreme cry: 'I cannot! I
cannot!'

For a moment Albine remained silent, gazing at the unhappy man who lay
shivering at her feet. Her face flared. She opened her arms as if to
seize him and strain him to her breast with wild angry passion. But
another idea came to her, and she merely took him by the hand and raised
him to his feet.

'Come!' said she.

She led him away to that giant tree, to the very spot where their love
had reigned supreme. There was the same bliss-inspiring shade, there was
the same trunk as of yore, the same branches spreading far around, like
sheltering and protecting arms. The tree still towered aloft, kindly,
robust, powerful, and fertile. As on the day of their nuptials,
languorous warmth, the glimmer of a summer's night fading on the bare
shoulder of some fair girl, a sob of love dying away into passionate
silence, lingered about the clearing as it lay there bathed in dim green
light. And, in the distance, the Paradou, in spite of the first
chills of autumn, sighed once more with passion, again becoming love's
accomplice. From the parterre, from the orchard, from the meadow-lands,
from the forest, from the great rocks, from the spreading heavens,
came back a ripple of voluptuous joy. Never had the garden, even on th