It was but for a few panting moments.
The clock of the ancient campanile of the Lycée Henri IV. struck the hour of eleven. The hoarse, low, booming sound went sullenly rumbling and roaring up and down the stone-ribbed plaza of the Panthéon, and rolled and reverberated from the great dome that sheltered the illustrious dead of France.
The curious old church of St. Étienne du Mont rose immediately in front of the girl, and the sound of the bells startled her,—shook her ideas together,—and, with the sight of the church, restored, in a measure, her presence of mind.
Her thoughts flew instantly back to the happy scene she had recently left behind. The bells of the old tower,—ah! how often she and Jean had regulated their ménage by their music!
And she looked up at the grimly mixed pile of four centuries, with its absurd little round tower, its grotesque gargouilles, and grass-grown walls,—St. Étienne du Mont.
Doubtless they would be married here.
To be married where reposed the blessed bones of Ste. Geneviève, or at St. Denis amid the relics of royalty, was the dream of every youthful Parisienne. And Ste. Geneviève was the patronne of the virgins as well as of the city of Paris.
Mlle. Fouchette had witnessed a wedding at good old St. Étienne du Mont,—indeed, any one might see a wedding here upon any day of the week, and at almost any hour of the day, in season,—and she now recalled the pretty scene. Yes, of course Jean and Andrée would be married here.
Obeying a curious impulse, the girl, still breathing heavily, ascended the broad stone steps and peeped into the little vestibule. The dark baize door within stood ajar, and she could see the faint twinkle of distant lights and smell the escaping odors from the last mass.
She would go in—just for a moment—to see again where they would stand before the altar. It would do no harm. Her last thoughts should be of those she loved,—loved dearer—yes, a great deal more dearly than life.