"When it means Death," she added.
The old man took his pipe back and smoked.
"Of course. Death is the key-note of creation."
Again she did not comprehend; a puzzled pain clouded the luster of her eyes.
"But the lark praised God—why should it be so dealt with?"
Marcellin smiled grimly.
"Abel was praising God; but that did not turn aside the steel."
She was silent yet again; he had told her that old story of the sons born of Eve, and the one whom, hearing it, she had understood and pitied had been Cain.
At that moment, through the roadway that wound across the meadows and through the corn lands and the trees, there came in sight a gleam of scarlet that was not from the poppies, a flash of silver that was not from the river, a column of smoke that was not from the weeds that burned on the hillside.
There came a moving cloud, with a melodious murmur softly rising from it; a cloud that moved between the high flowering hedges, the tall amber wheat, the slender poplars, and the fruitful orchards; a cloud that grew larger and clearer as it drew more near to them, and left the green water-meadows and the winding field-paths for the great highroad.