"I have heard something of that," he whispered stealthily.
She affirmed with quiet earnestness: "Yet at that time I resisted with all my might."
That night Scevola put her under the care of a woman called Perose. She was young and pretty and was a native of Arles, her mother's country. She kept an inn. That woman locked her up in her own room, which was next to the room where the patriots kept on shouting, singing and making speeches far into the night. Several times the woman would look in for a moment, make a hopeless gesture at her with both arms, and vanish again. Later, on many other nights when all the band lay asleep on benches and on the floor, Perose would steal into the room, fall on her knees by the bed on which Arlette sat upright, open-eyed, and raving silently to herself, embrace her feet and cry herself to sleep. But in the morning she would jump up briskly and say: "Come. The great affair is to keep our life in our bodies. Come along to help in the work of justice"; and they would join the band that was making ready for another day of traitor hunting. But after a time the victims, of which the streets were full at first, had to be sought for in back-yards, ferreted out of their hiding-places, dragged up out of the cellars, or down from the garrets of the houses, which would be entered by the band with howls of death and vengeance.
"Then, Monsieur l'Abbé," said Arlette, "I let myself go at last. I could resist no longer. I said to myself. 'If it is so then it must be right.' But most of the time I was like a person half asleep and dreaming things that it is impossible to believe. About that time, I don't know why, the woman Perose hinted to me that Scevola was a poor creature. Next night while all the band lay fast asleep in the big room Perose and Scevola helped me out of the window into the street and led me to the quay behind the arsenal. Scevola had found our tartane lying at the pontoon and one of the Madrague men with her. The other had disappeared. Perose fell on my neck and cried a little. She gave me a kiss and said: "My time will come soon. You, Scevola, don't you show yourself in Toulon, because nobody believes in you any more. Adieu, Arlette. Vive la Nation!" and she vanished in the night. I waited on the pontoon shivering in my torn clothes, listening to Scevola and the man throwing dead bodies overboard out of the tartane. Splash, splash, splash. And suddenly I felt I must run away, but they were after me in a moment, dragged me back and threw me down into that cabin which smelt of blood. But when I got back to the farm all feeling had left me. I did not feel myself exist. I saw things round me here and there, but I couldn't look at anything for long. Something was gone out of me. I know now that it was not my heart, but then I didn't mind what it was. I felt light and empty, and a little cold all the time, but I could smile at people. Nothing could matter. Nothing could mean anything. I cared for no one. I wanted nothing. I wasn't alive at all, Monsieur l'Abbé. People seemed to see me and would talk to me, and it seemed funny – till one day I felt my heart beat."
"Why precisely did you come to me with this tale?" asked the abbé in a low voice.
"Because you are a priest. Have you forgotten that I have been brought up in a convent? I have not forgotten how to pray. But I am afraid of the world now. What must I do?"
"Repent!" thundered the abbé, getting up. He saw her candid gaze uplifted and lowered his voice forcibly. "You must look with fearless sincerity into the darkness of your soul. Remember whence the only true help can come. Those whom God has visited by a trial such as yours can not be held guiltless of their enormities. Withdraw from the world. Descend within yourself and abandon the vain thoughts of what people call happiness. Be an example to yourself of the sinfulness of our nature and of the weakness of our humanity. You may have been possessed. What do I know? Perhaps it was permitted in order to lead your soul to saintliness through a life of seclusion and prayer. To that it would be my duty to help you. Meantime you must pray to be given strength for a complete renunciation."
Arlette, lowering her eyes slowly, appealed to the abbé as a symbolic figure of spiritual mystery. "What can be God's designs on this creature?" he asked himself.
"Monsieur le Curé," she said quietly, "I felt the need to pray to-day for the first time in many years. When I left home it was only to go to your church."
"The church stands open to the worst of sinners," said the abbé.
"I know. But I would have had to pass before all those villagers: and you, abbé, know well what they are capable of."
"Perhaps," murmured the abbé, "it would be better not to put their charity to the test."
"I must pray before I go back again. I thought you would let me come in through the sacristy."
"It would be inhuman to refuse your request," he said, rousing himself and taking down a key that hung on the wall. He put on his broad-brimmed hat and without a word led the way through the wicket gate and along the path which he always used himself and which was out of sight of the village fountain. After they had entered the damp and dilapidated sacristy he locked the door behind them and only then opened another, a smaller one, leading into the church. When he stood aside, Arlette became aware of the chilly odour as of freshly turned-up earth mingled with a faint scent of incense. In the deep dusk of the nave a single little flame glimmered before an image of the virgin. The abbé whispered as she passed on:
"There before the great altar abase yourself and pray for grace and strength and mercy in this world full of crimes against God and men."
She did not look at him. Through the thin soles of her shoes she could feel the chill of the flagstones. The abbé left the door ajar, sat down on a rush-bottomed chair, the only one in the sacristy, folded his arms and let his chin fall on his breast. He seemed to be sleeping profoundly, but at the end of half an hour he got up and, going to the doorway, stood looking at the kneeling figure sunk low on the altar steps. Arlette's face was buried in her hands in a passion of piety and prayer. The abbé waited patiently for a good many minutes more, before he raised his voice in a grave murmur which filled the whole dark place.
"It is time for you to leave. I am going to ring for vespers."
The view of her complete absorption before the Most High had touched him. He stepped back into the sacristy and after a time heard the faintest possible swish of the black silk skirt of the Escampobar daughter in her Arlesian costume. She entered the sacristy lightly with shining eyes, and the abbé looked at her with some emotion.
"You have prayed well, my daughter," he said. "No forgiveness will be refused to you, for you have suffered much. Put your trust in the grace of God."
She raised her head and stayed her footsteps for a moment. In the dark little place he could see the gleam of her eyes swimming in tears.
"Yes, Monsieur l'Abbé," she said in her clear seductive voice. "I have prayed and I feel answered. I entreated the merciful God to keep the heart of the man I love always true to me or else to let me die before I set my eyes on him again."
The abbé paled under his tan of a village priest and leaned his shoulders against the wall without a word.
XI
AFTER leaving the church by the sacristy door Arlette never looked back. The abbé saw her flit past the presbytery, and the building hid her from his sight. He did not accuse her of duplicity. He had deceived himself. A heathen. White as her skin was, the blackness of her hair and of her eyes, the dusky red of her lips, suggested a strain of Saracen blood. He gave her up without a sigh.
Arlette walked rapidly towards Escampobar as if she could not get there soon enough; but as she neared the first enclosed field her steps became slower and after hesitating awhile she sat down between two olive trees, near a wall bordered by a growth of thin grass at the foot. "And if I have been possessed," she argued to herself, "as the abbé said, what is it to me as I am now? That evil spirit cast my true self out of my body and then cast away the body too. For years I have been living empty. There has been no meaning in anything."