When the priest had finished, she hastened to change the altar-cloth, taking the greatest care not to smudge the beading. Then she arranged the cross, the candlesticks, and the vases symmetrically. Abbé Mouret had gone to lean against the wooden screen which separated the choir from the nave, by the side of Brother Archangias. Not a word passed between them. Their eyes were fixed upon the silver crucifix, which, in the increasing gloom, still cast some glimmer of light on the feet and the left side and the right temple of the big Christ. When La Teuse had finished, she came down towards them, triumphantly. ‘Doesn’t it look lovely?’ she asked. ‘Just you see what a crowd there will be at mass to-morrow! Those heathens will only come to God’s house when they think He is well-to-do. Now, Monsieur le Curé, we must do as much for the Blessed Virgin’s altar.’ ‘Waste of money!’ growled Brother Archangias. But La Teuse flew into a tantrum; and, as Abbé Mouret remained silent, she led them both before the altar of the Virgin, pushing them and dragging them by their cassocks. ‘Just look at it,’ said she; ‘it is too shabby for anything, now that the high altar is so smart. It looks as though it had never been painted at all. However much I may rub it of a morning, the dust sticks to it. It is quite black; it is filthy. Do you know what people will say about you, your reverence? They will say that you care nothing for the Blessed Virgin; that’s what they’ll say.’ ‘Well, what of it?’ queried Brother Archangias. La Teuse looked at him, half suffocated by indignation. ‘What of it? It would be sinful, of course,’ she muttered. ‘This altar is like a neglected tomb in a graveyard. If it were not for me, the spiders would spin their webs across it, and moss would soon grow over it. From time to time, when I can spare a bunch of flowers, I give it to the Virgin. All the flowers in our garden used to be for her once.’ She had mounted the altar steps, and she took up two withered bunches of flowers, which had been left there, forgotten. ‘See! it is just as it is in the graveyards,’ she said, throwing the flowers at Abbé Mouret’s feet. He picked them up, without replying. It was quite dark now, and Brother Archangias stumbled about amongst the chairs and nearly fell. He growled and muttered some angry words, in which the names of Jesus and Mary recurred. When La Teuse, who had gone for a lamp, returned into the church, she asked the priest: ‘So I can put the brushes and pots away in the attic, then?’ ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘I have finished. We will see about the rest later on.’ She walked away in front of them, carrying all the things with her, and keeping silence, lest she should say too much. And as Abbé Mouret had kept the withered bunches of flowers in his hand, Brother Archangias said to him, as they passed the farmyard: ‘Throw those things away.’