"It is good of you to have trusted me!" said Jean. "Come, Odile!"

He followed, close to her, the avenue planted with sorry trees distorted by the winter winds. He was so much affected by the realisation of his dream that he could only think and speak of one thing: his grat.i.tude to Odile, who was absolutely silent, only listening to what he did not say--and as full of emotion as he was.

They left the road at the place where it begins to slope downwards, and took a path through the forest of lofty pines in serried ranks which leads round the convent. There was no one there, and Jean saw that Odile's eyes of the colour of ripe corn, eyes deep and serious, were turned towards him. There was no sound in the wood save that from the drops of moisture falling from the leaves. They were quite close to each other.

"I asked you to come," said Jean, "so that you should decide what my life is to be. You were the love of my early youth. I want you to be my love always!"

Odile's look was far away, lost in the distance. She trembled slightly, and said:

"Have you thought?"

"Of everything!"

"Even of that which may separate us?"

"What do you mean by that? What are you afraid of? Of entering a disunited family?"

"No!"

"You would bring them together, I am sure of it. You would be its joy and peace. What do you fear--my father's or your father's opposition because they are now enemies?"

"That could be got over," said the young girl.

"Then it is because your mother detests me," said Jean hastily. "She does hate me, does she not? The other day she was so stiff to me, so offensive."

The fair head made a sign of denial.

"She will be slower in believing in you than my father was, slower than I was myself. But when she sees that your education has not changed your mind towards Alsace she will overcome her prejudices."

After a moment's silence Odile said:

"I do not think I am making any mistake. To-day's difficulties can be brushed on one side by you or by me, or by both of us. I am only afraid of what I do not know, the least thing which to-morrow might aggravate such a disturbed state----"

"I understand," said Jean, "you are afraid of my father's ambition?"

"Perhaps!"

"We have already suffered much from that. But he is my father. He is set on keeping me here; he says it every day. When he knows that I have chosen you, Odile, if he has personal projects which would prevent our marriage, he will at least put them off. Do not have any fear; we shall win!"

"We shall win!" she repeated.

"I am sure of it, Odile. You will make my life, Odile, which will be difficult, perhaps impossible, if you were not there. It was for you that I came back to the country. If I tell you that I have travelled much, and found no woman who had the charm for me that you have, or who made the same impression on me--how shall I tell you? The impression of a mountain stream so fresh and deep! Every time I think of my future marriage your image comes before my eyes. I love you, Odile!"

He took Odile's hand, and she answered, lifting her eyes to the light coming from above the trees.

"G.o.d is my witness that I love you, too!"

She thrilled with joy, and Jean felt her hand tremble.

"Yes," said Jean; and he tried to look into her eyes, which were still fixed on the distance.

"We shall overcome everything. We shall overcome the numerous obstacles arising from this terrible subject: that is all that is between us."

"Yes; it is the one and only question in this part of the world."

"It poisons everything!"

She stopped, and turned her radiant face full of love to him--of that beautiful and proud love which he had longed to know and to inspire.

"Say rather that it makes everything greater. Our quarrels here are not village quarrels--we are either for or against a country. We are obliged to have courage every day, to make enemies every day, every day to break with old friends who would willingly have remained faithful to us, but who are not faithful to Alsace. No action of our lives is indifferent; there is no action that is not an affirmation.

I a.s.sure you, Jean, there is n.o.bleness in that."

"That is true, Odile, my beloved."

They stopped to enjoy that delicious word to the full. Their souls were in their eyes, and they looked at each other tremblingly. In low tones, although there were no onlookers other than the pines swayed by the wind, they spoke of the future as of a battle already begun.

"Lucienne will be on my side," said Jean. "I shall entrust my secret to her when occasion occurs. She will help me, and I count on her."

"I count on my father," said Odile; "for he is already well disposed towards you. But take care not to do anything that would annoy him.

Do not try to see me at Alsheim. Do not try to hurry on the time."

"That glorious time when you will be mine!"

They smiled at each other for the first time.

"I love you so dearly," continued Jean, "that I shall not ask you for the kiss that you would no doubt give me--I have no right to it.

We do not entirely depend on ourselves, Odile. And then it pleases me to show you how sacred you are to me. Tell me at least that I shall take away with me a little of your soul?"

The lips so near his murmured "Yes!" And almost immediately:

"Do you hear down there? Is that the first Easter bell?"

They turned together towards the side where the wood sloped downwards.

"No; it must be the wind in the trees."

"Come," said she: "the bells are going to ring. And if I were not seen up there when they rang, old Rose would speak of it...."

Hardly saying a word, she led him to the base of the rock. There they separated to go back to the Abbey by two different paths.

"I shall find you again on the terrace," said Odile.

The daylight was growing blue in the hollows. That was the hour when waiting for the night does not seem long, and the morrow already dawns in the dreaming mind.

In a few minutes Jean had crossed the yard, followed the corridors of the convent, and opened a door leading to the garden in a sharp angle at the east of the buildings. There it was that all the pilgrims to Sainte Odile met to see Alsace when the weather was clear. A wall, high enough to lean on, runs along the top of an enormous block of rock, advancing like a spur above the forest. It overlooks the pines which cover the slopes everywhere. From the extreme point shut in, like the lantern of a lighthouse, one can see to the right quite a group of mountains, and in front and to the left the plain of Alsace. At this moment the fog was divided into two parts, for the sun was shining on the peaks of the Vosges. All the cloudy mist which did not reach that waving line of peaks, was grey and wan; but just above, almost horizontal rays pierced the mist and coloured it, giving to the second half of the landscape a look of brightness like luminous foam. And this separation showed with what quickness the mist came up from the valley towards the departing sun. The fleecy clouds intermingling, were wafted into the illumined s.p.a.ce, were irradiated, showing thus their incessantly changing shapes, and the strength of the motion impelling them, as if the light had summoned their columns to greater heights.

There was at the entrance of this narrow place, arranged for pilgrims and visitors, an old man wearing the costume of the old Alsatians to the north of Strasburg; near him the priest with grey curly hair whom the children had greeted in the morning on the slope of Sainte Odile; a step or two farther on were the young Weissenburg peasants, and at the narrowest spot, squeezed close together on the wall, were the two students who might have been taken for brothers on account of their protruding lips and their beards divided in the middle, one fair, the other chestnut coloured. Both were Alsatians.

They exchanged everyday remarks, as is usual among people who do not know each other. When they saw Jean Oberle they turned round, and they felt themselves suddenly united by a common bond of race which becomes stronger in the face of a common danger.