But Mireio and not Meste Ambroi makes known to her father that it is her hand Vincen seeks, and the mother and father break out in anger against the maid.  Ramoun’s anger leads him to speak offensively to Meste Ambroi, who nobly maintains his dignity amid his poverty, and recounts his services to his country that have been so ill repaid.  Ramoun is equally proud of his wealth, earned by the sweat of his brow, and sternly refuses.  The other leaves, and then the harvesters continue their merry-making, with singing and farandoles, about a great bonfire in honor of Saint John.  “All the hills were aglow as if stars had rained in the darkness, and the mad wind carried up the incense of the hills and the red gleam of the fires toward the saint, hovering in the blue twilight.”

That night Mireio grieved and wept for Vincen, and, remembering what he had told her of the three Saint Maries, rises before the dawn and flees away.  Her journey across the Crau and the island of Camargue is narrated with numerous details and descriptions; they are never extraneous to the action, and are a constant source of beauty and interest.  The strange, barren plain of the Crau, covered with the stones that once destroyed a race of Giants, as the legend has it, is vividly described, as the maiden flies across it in the ardent rays of the June sun.  She stops to pray to a saint that he send her a draught of water, and immediately she comes upon a well.  Here she meets a little Arlesian boy who tells her “in his golden speech” of the glories of Arles.  “But,” says the poet, “O soft, dark city, the child forgot to tell thy supreme wonder; O fertile land of Arles, Heaven gives pure beauty to thy daughters, as it gives grapes to the autumn, and perfumes to the mountains and wings to the bird.”  The little fellow talks of many things and leads her to his home.  From here the fisherman ferries her over the broad Rhone, and we accompany her over the Camargue, down to the sea.  A mirage deceives her for a time, she sees the town and church, but it soon vanishes in air, and the maiden hurries on in the fierce heat.

Her prayer in the chapel is written in another verse form:—­

    “O Santi Mario
    Que poudes en flour
    Chanja nosti plour
    Clinas leu l’auriho
    De-vers ma doulour!”

     O Holy Maries, who can change our tears to blossoms, incline
     quickly an ear unto my grief!

Before the prayer is ended, there begins the vision of the three Maries, descending to her from Heaven.

Meste Ramoun discovers the flight of the unhappy maiden, and with all his family starts in pursuit.  After the first outburst of grief, he sends out a messenger.

“Let the mowers and the ploughmen leave the scythes and the ploughs!  Say to the harvesters to throw down their sickles, bid the shepherds leave their flocks, bid them come to me!”