ht forever unalterable, they saw scintillate,
like a simple and gentle dust of phosphorus, the terrifying multitude of
the worlds.

The curfew began to ring, however, at the church. The sound of that
bell, at night especially, was for them something unique on earth.
At this moment, it was something like a voice bringing, in their
indecision, its advice, its counsel, decisive and tender. Mute still,
they listened to it with an increasing emotion, of an intensity till
then unknown, the brown head of the one leaning on the brown head of the
other. It said, the advising voice, the dear, protecting voice: "No, do
not go forever; the far-off lands are made for the time of youth; but
you must be able to return to Etchezar: it is here that you must grow
old and die; nowhere in the world could you sleep as in this graveyard
around the church, where one may, even when lying under the earth, hear
me ring again--" They yielded more and more to the voice of the bell,
the two children whose minds were religious and primitive. And Ramuntcho
felt on his cheek a tear of Gracieuse:

"No," he said at last, "I will not desert; I think that I would not have
the courage to do it--"

"I thought the same thing as you, my Ramuntcho," she said. "No, let us
not do that. I was waiting for you to say it--"

Then he realized that he also was crying, like her--

The die was cast, they would permit to pass by happiness which was
within their reach, almost under their hands; they would postpone
everything to a future uncertain and so far off--!

And now, in the sadness, in the meditation of the great decision which
they had taken, they communicated to each other what seemed best for
them to do:

"We might," she said, "write a pretty letter to your uncle Ignacio;
write to him that you accept, that you will come with a great deal of
pleasure immediately after your military service; you might even add,
if you wish, that the one who is engaged to you thanks him and will be
ready to follow you; but that decidedly you cannot desert."

"And why should you not talk to your mother now, Gatchutcha, only to
know what she would think?--Because now, you understand, I am not as I
was, an abandoned child--" Slight steps behind them, in the path--and
above the wall, the silhouette of a young man who had come on the tips
of his sandals, as if to spy upon them!

"Go, escape, my Ramuntcho, we will meet to-morrow evening!--"

In half a second, there was nobody