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Now he seemed to be everywhere at once: he filled the Clos-Marie with his restlessness; he came out from behind every tree; he appeared above every bunch of brambles. Like the wood-pigeons of the great elms in the Bishop's garden, he seemed to have his habitation between two branches in the environs.
This Clos-Marie was the old orchard of the monks. A rivulet of purest spring-water crossed it, the Chevrotte, where the women who occupied the houses in the neighbourhood had the privilege of washing their linen; certain poor people sheltered themselves in the ruins of an old tumble-down mill; and no other persons inhabited this field, which was connected with the Rue Magloire simply by the narrow lane of the Guerdaches, which passed between the high walls of the Bishop's Palace and those of the Hotel Voincourt.
But there was no reply; the air seemed empty. There were no more whispering voices, no more mysterious rustlings. Everything seemed to be dead the Clos-Marie, with the Chevrotte, the willows, the elm-trees in the Bishop's garden, and the Cathedral itself. Nothing remained of the dreams she had placed there; the white flight of her friends in passing away left behind them only their sepulchre.
At first, directly under her was the garden, darkened by the eternal shade of the evergreen box-trees; in the corner nearest the church, a cluster of small lilac-bushes surrounded an old granite bench; while in the opposite corner, half hidden by a beautiful ivy which covered the whole wall at the end as if with a mantle, was a little door opening upon the Clos-Marie, a vast, uncultivated field.
At the close of the second week, that which astonished Angelique above all was that she had not seen Felicien. She, it was true, had pledged herself to take no steps towards meeting him, yet, without having said so to anyone, she thought he would do all in his power to find her. But the Clos-Marie remained deserted, and he no longer walked among the wild grasses therein.
When, in crossing the Clos-Marie, he lifted his head, he saw that she was kissing the flowers. Scarcely had Felicien disappeared behind the willows, when Angelique was disturbed by hearing below the opening of the house-door. Four o'clock had just struck, and no one was in the habit of getting up until two hours later.
A sweet, gentle quiet seemed to fall down from on high, soothing to sleep the Clos-Marie, whose willows were lost in the dusk. The Cathedral itself was only a great black bar in the West. "Yes, certainly, now he will offer to give the shoes." And at this probability she was really quite discouraged. Was he always, then, to give everything? Could she never, even once, conquer him? Never!
In summer, the centenarian elms of the two parks barred with their green-leaved tops the straight, limited horizon which in the centre was cut off by the gigantic brow of the Cathedral. Thus shut in on all sides, the Clos-Marie slept in the quiet peace of its abandonment, overrun with weeds and wild grass, planted with poplars and willows sown by the wind.
Then she grew impatient to know more, and her watching recommenced. The moon, at its full, lighted up the Clos-Marie. When it was at its zenith, the trees, under the white rays which fell straight upon them in perpendicular lines, cast no more shadows, but were like running fountains of silent brightness.
She followed it with regret, and at each nightfall she awaited its appearance, watched its growth, and was impatient for this torch which would ere long light up the invisible. In fact, little by little, the Clos-Marie came out from the obscurity, with the ruins of its old mill, its clusters of trees, and its rapid little river. And then, in the light, creation continued.
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