. Your maid betrayed you. She told me
you were waiting for a pink gown which was delayed in coming and that you
were very impatient. But do not let that trouble you. You are always
beautiful, my love."

She made Madame Martin enter her wagon.

"Come, quick, darling; Monsieur Jacques Dechartre dines at the house
to-night, and I should not like to make him wait."

And while they were driving through the silence of the night, through the
pathways full of the fresh perfume of wildflowers, she said:

"Do you see over there, darling, the black distaffs of the Fates, the
cypresses of the cemetery? It is there I wish to sleep."

But Therese thought anxiously: "They saw him. Did they recognize him? I
think not. The place was dark, and had only little blinding lights. Did
she know him? I do not recall whether she saw him at my house last year."

What made her anxious was a sly smile on the Prince's face.

"Darling, do you wish a place near me in that rustic cemetery? Shall we
rest side by side under a little earth and a great deal of sky? But I do
wrong to extend to you an invitation which you can not accept. It will
not be permitted to you to sleep your eternal sleep at the foot of the
hill of Fiesole, my love. You must rest in Paris, in a handsome tomb, by
the side of Count Martin-Belleme."

"Why? Do you think, dear, that the wife must be united to her husband
even after death?"

"Certainly she must, darling. Marriage is for time and for eternity. Do
you not know the history of a young pair who loved each other in the
province of Auvergne? They died almost at the same time, and were placed
in two tombs separated by a road. But every night a sweetbrier bush threw
from one tomb to the other its flowery branches. The two coffins had to
be buried together."

When they had passed the Badia, they saw a procession coming up the side
of the hill. The wind blew on the candles borne in gilded wooden
candlesticks. The girls of the societies, dressed in white and blue,
carried painted banners. Then came a little St. John, blond,
curly-haired, nude, under a lamb's fleece which showed his arms and
shoulders; and a St. Mary Magdalene, seven years old, crowned only with
her waving golden hair. The people of Fiesole followed. Countess Martin
recognized Choulette among them. With a candle in one hand, a book in the
other, and blue spectacles on the end of his nose, he was singing. His
unkempt beard moved up and down with the rhythm of