“No, do not stir.  I know the way, and I will go and find her myself.”

She was in the orchard, was she?  The Abbe preferred it should be so; he thought the interview would be less painful, and that the surrounding trees would give him ideas.  He walked across the kitchen, descended the steps leading from the ground floor to the garden, and ascended the slope in search of Reine, whom he soon perceived in the midst of a bower formed by clustering filbert-trees.

At sight of the cure, Reine turned pale; he had doubtless come to tell her the result of his interview with Claudet, and what day had been definitely chosen for the nuptial celebration.  She had been troubled all night by the reflection that her fate would soon be irrevocably scaled; she had wept, and her eyes betrayed it.  Only the day before, she had looked upon this project of marriage, which she had entertained in a moment of anger and injured feeling, as a vague thing, a vaporous eventuality of which the realization was doubtful; now, all was arranged, settled, cruelly certain; there was no way of escaping from a promise which Claudet, alas! was bound to consider a serious one.  These thoughts traversed her mind, while the cure was slowly approaching the filbert-trees; she felt her heart throb, and her eyes again filled with tears.  Yet her pride would not allow that the Abbe should witness her irresolution and weeping; she made an effort, overcame the momentary weakness, and addressed the priest in an almost cheerful voice: 

“Monsieur le Cure, I am sorry that they have made you come up this hill to find me.  Let us go back to the farm, and I will offer you a cup of coffee.”

“No, my child,” replied the Abbe, motioning with his hand that she should stay where she was, “no, thank you!  I will not take anything.  Remain where you are.

“I wish to talk to you, and we shall be less liable to be disturbed here.”

There were two rustic seats under the nut-trees; the cure took one and asked Reine to take the other, opposite to him.  There they were, under the thick, verdant branches, hidden from indiscreet passers-by, surrounded by silence, installed as in a confessional.

The morning quiet, the solitude, the half light, all invited meditation and confidence; nevertheless the young girl and the priest sat motionless; both agitated and embarrassed and watching each other without uttering a sound.  It was Reine who first broke the silence.

“You have seen Claudet, Monsieur le Cure?”

“Yes, yes!” replied the Abbe, sighing deeply.

“He—­spoke to you of our-plans,” continued the young girl, in a quavering voice, “and you fixed the day?”

“No, my child, we settled nothing.  I wanted to see you first, and converse with you about something very important.”

The Abbe hesitated, rubbed a spot of mud off his soutane, raised his shoulders like a man lifting a heavy burden, then gave a deep cough.