And, in truth, the Abbe seemed like a culprit ever guarded by the black shadow of the Brother’s cassock; a culprit to be treated distrustfully, since in his weakness he might well lapse into fresh crime were he left free from surveillance for a single moment.  Thus he was watched and guarded with all the spiteful eagerness that some jealous old maid might have displayed, the overreaching zeal of a gaoler who might carry precautions so far as to exclude even such rays of light as might creep through the chinks of the prison-house.  Brother Archangias was always on the watch to keep out the sunlight, to prevent even a whiff of air from entering, to shut up his prison so completely that nothing from outside could gain access to it.  He noted the Abbe’s slightest fits of weakness, and by his glance divined his tender thoughts, which with a word he pitilessly crushed, as though they were poisonous vermin.  The priest’s intervals of silence, his smiles, the paling of his brow, the faint quivering of his limbs, were all noted by the Brother.  But he never spoke openly of the transgression.  His presence alone was a sufficient reproach.  The manner in which he uttered certain words imparted to them all the sting of a whip stroke.  With a mere gesture he expressed his utter disgust for the priest’s sin.  Like one of those betrayed husbands who enjoy torturing their wives with cruel allusions, he contented himself with recalling the scene at the Paradou, in an indirect fashion, by some word or phrase which sufficed to annihilate the Abbe, whenever the latter’s flesh rebelled.

It was nearly ten o’clock and most of the villagers of Les Artaud had retired to rest.  But from a brightly lighted house at the far end, near the mill, there still came sounds of merriment.  While keeping the best rooms for his own use, old Bambousse had given a corner of his house to his daughter and son-in-law.  They were all assembled there, drinking a last glass, while waiting for the priest.

‘They are drunk,’ growled Brother Archangias.  ’Don’t you hear the row they are making?’

Abbe Mouret made no reply.  It was a lovely night and all looked bluish in the moonlight, which lent to the distant part of the valley the aspect of a sleeping lake.  The priest slackened his pace that he might the more fully enjoy the charm of that soft radiance, and now and then he even stopped as he came upon some expanse of light, experiencing the delightful quiver which the proximity of fresh water brings one on a hot day.  But the Brother continued striding along, grumbling and calling him.

’Come along; come along!  It isn’t good to loiter out of doors at this time of night.  You would be much better in bed.’

All at once, however, just as they were entering the village, Archangias himself stopped short in the middle of the road.  He was looking towards the heights, where the white lines of the roads vanished amidst black patches of pine-woods, and he growled to himself, like a dog that scents danger.