Sometimes the squalls of the December wind would roar round the pile, and storms of melted snow would heat upon the walls. Theresa was none the less punctual to the appointment, leaving her cab before the great doorway and crossing the church to go out of it at the side, and there join Hubert in the dark peristyle which comes before the towers. Her delicate teeth shone in her pretty smile, and her slender figure appeared still more elegant in this ornament of the ancient city. Her happy grace seemed to work even upon the old caretaker who, surrounded by her cats, gives out the tickets from the depths of her lodge, for she used to give her a grateful smile. It was on the staircase of one of these ancient towers that Hubert had ventured, for the first time, to print a kiss upon the pale face that to him was divine. Theresa was climbing in front of him that morning up the hollowed steps which turn about the stone pillar. She stopped for a minute to take breath; he supported her in his arms, and, as she leaned back gently and rested her head upon his shoulder, their lips met. The emotion was so strong that he was like to die. This first kiss had been followed by another, then by ten, then by such numbers of others that they lost count of them. Oh, those long, thrilling, deep kisses, of which she used to say tenderly, as though to justify herself in the thought of her sweet accomplice: "I am as fond of kisses as a little girl!" They had thus madly peopled all the retreats wherein their imprudent love had taken shelter with these adorable kisses. Hubert could remember having embraced Theresa when they both were seated on a tomb-stone in a deserted walk of one of the Paris cemeteries one bright, warm morning, while around them stretched the garden of the dead, with its funereal landscape of evergreens and tombs. He had embraced her again on one of the benches in the distant park of Montsouris, one of the least known in the town--a park quite recently planted, crossed by a railway, overlooked by a pavilion of Chinese architecture, and having a horizon formed by the factories in the mournful Glacière quarter stretching around it. At other times they had driven in an indeterminate fashion along the dull slopes of the fortifications, and when it was time to return home Theresa was always the first to depart. Himself hidden in the cab, which remained stationary, he could see her crossing the kennels with her dainty feet. She would walk along the footpath, not a spot of mud dishonouring her dress, and would turn as though involuntarily to enwrap him in a last look. It was on such occasions that he was only too sensible of the dangers which he was causing this woman to incur, but when he spoke to her of his fears she would reply, shaking her head with so easily tragic an expression: "I have no children. What harm can be done to me unless you are taken from me?"