‘You are in His house now,’ said Abbé Mouret, sternly. ‘You blaspheme. With a breath He might turn you into dust.’
She laughed with proud disdain, and raised her hands as if to defy Heaven.
‘Ah! then,’ said she, ‘you prefer your God to me. You think He is stronger than I am, and you imagine that He will love you better than I did. Oh! but you are a child, a foolish child. Come, leave all this folly. We will return to the garden together, and love each other, and be happy and free. That, that is life!’
This time she succeeded in throwing an arm round his waist, and she tried to drag him away. But he, quivering all over, freed himself from her embrace, and again took his stand against the altar.
‘Go away!’ he faltered. ‘If you still love me, go away.... O Lord, pardon her, and pardon me too, for thus defiling this Thy house. Should I go with her beyond the door, I might, perhaps, follow her. Here, in Thy presence, I am strong. Suffer that I may remain here, to protect Thee from insult.’
Albine remained silent for a moment. Then, in a calm voice, she said:
‘Well, let us stay here, then. I wish to speak to you. You cannot, surely, be cruel. You will understand me. You will not let me go away alone. Oh! do not begin to excuse yourself. I will not lay my hands upon you again, since it distresses you. I am quite calm now as you can see. We will talk quietly, as we used to do in the old days when we lost our way, and did not hurry to find it again, that we might have the more time to talk together.’
She smiled at that memory, and continued:
‘I don’t know about these things myself. My uncle Jeanbernat used to forbid me to go to church. “Silly girl,” he’d say to me, “why do you want to go to a stuffy building when you have got a garden to run about in?” I grew up quite happy and contented. I used to look in the birds’ nests without even taking the eggs. I did not even pluck the flowers, for fear of hurting the plants; and you know that I could never torture an insect. Why, then, should God be angry with me?’
‘You should learn to know Him, pray to Him, and render Him the constant worship which is His due,’ answered the priest.