itude whenever he would.

On other days, when it was fine, he would take for the object of his
walk a convent whose existence had been revealed to him by Madame
Bavoil. One afternoon he had met her in the square, and she had said to
him,--

"I am going to see the little Jesus of Prague at the Carmelite convent
here. Will you come with me, our friend?"

Durtal had no liking for these petty pilgrimages made by good women; but
the idea of going to the Carmelite chapel, which was unknown to him,
tempted him to accompany her, and she led the way to the Rue des
Jubelines, behind the railway line and beyond the station. They had to
cross a bridge that groaned under the weight of rolling trains, and
turned to the right down a path winding between the embankment on one
side, and on the other thatched huts, and old sheds, and other houses
less poverty-stricken, indeed, but closed and impenetrable after
daybreak. Madame Bavoil led him to where this alley ended under the arch
of another bridge. Overhead was a siding, with its signals round and
square, red and yellow, and posts with cast-iron ladders; and there
always in the same place an engine was being fired, or, with shrill
whistling, was moving out backwards.

Madame Bavoil stopped at a door under a round arch in an immense wall,
which not far off ran against the embankment, forming an impassable
angle; it was built of millstone grit of the colour of burnt almonds,
like that used for the Paris reservoirs; here dwelt the nuns of Saint
Theresa.

Madame Bavoil, as being used to convent ways, pushed open the door which
stood ajar, and Durtal saw before him a paved walk between strips of
river pebbles, dividing a garden stocked with fruit-trees and geraniums.
Two yews, clipped into spheres, with a cross on the top of each, gave
this priestly close a graveyard flavour.

The path led upwards, cut into steps. When they reached the top Durtal
saw a building of brick and plaster pierced with windows guarded by iron
bars, and a grey door with a wicket bearing these words painted in
white, "O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who put our trust in
Thee."

He looked about him, surprised at seeing nobody, hearing nothing; but
Madame Bavoil beckoned to him, made her way round the house, and led the
way into a sort of vestibule along which clambered a vine wrapped in
swathing, and she turned into a little chapel, where she knelt down on
the flagstones.

Durtal, amazed, seemed