Serge was weeping.
‘You see that the Paradou is not dead,’ she added. ‘It is crying out to us to love each other. It still desires our union. Oh, do remember! Clasp me to your heart!’
Serge still wept.
Albine said nothing more. She flung her arms around him; she pressed her warm lips to his corpse-like face; but tears were still his only answer.
Then, after a long silence, Albine spoke. She stood erect, full of contempt and determination.
‘Away with you! Go!’ she said, in a low voice.
Serge rose with difficulty. He picked up his breviary, which had fallen upon the grass. And he walked away.
‘Away with you! Go!’ repeated Albine, in louder tones, as she followed and drove him before her.
Thus she urged him on from bush to bush till she had driven him back to the breach in the wall, in the midst of the stern-looking trees. And there, as she saw Serge hesitate, with lowered head she cried out violently:
‘Away with you Go!’