actually sonorous, and the utterances of her
eyes were reechoed in the depths of my heart as though living lips had
breathed them into my life. I felt myself willing to renounce God,
and yet my tongue mechanically fulfilled all the formalities of
the ceremony. The fair one gave me another look, so beseeching, so
despairing that keen blades seemed to pierce my heart, and I felt my
bosom transfixed by more swords than those of Our Lady of Sorrows.

All was consummated; I had become a priest.

Never was deeper anguish painted on human face than upon hers. The
maiden who beholds her affianced lover suddenly fall dead at her side,
the mother bending over the empty cradle of her child, Eve seated at
the threshold of the gate of Paradise, the miser who finds a stone
substituted for his stolen treasure, the poet who accidentally permits
the only manuscript of his finest work to fall into the fire, could not
wear a look so despairing, so inconsolable. All the blood had abandoned
her charming face, leaving it whiter than marble; her beautiful arms
hung lifelessly on either side of her body as though their muscles
had suddenly relaxed, and she sought the support of a pillar, for her
yielding limbs almost betrayed her. As for myself, I staggered toward
the door of the church, livid as death, my forehead bathed with a sweat
bloodier than that of Calvary; I felt as though I were being strangled;
the vault seemed to have flattened down upon my shoulders, and it seemed
to me that my head alone sustained the whole weight of the dome.

As I was about to cross the threshold a hand suddenly caught mine--a
woman's hand! I had never till then touched the hand of any woman.
It was cold as a serpent's skin, and yet its impress remained upon my
wrist, burnt there as though branded by a glowing iron. It was she.
'Unhappy man! Unhappy man! What hast thou done?' she exclaimed in a low
voice, and immediately disappeared in the crowd.

The aged bishop passed by. He cast a severe and scrutinising look upon
me. My face presented the wildest aspect imaginable: I blushed and
turned pale alternately; dazzling lights flashed before my eyes. A
companion took pity on me. He seized my arm and led me out. I could
not possibly have found my way back to the seminary unassisted. At the
corner of a street, while the young priest's attention was momentarily
turned in another direction, a negro page, fantastically garbed,
approached me, and without pausing on h