But Abbé Mouret still lingered by the grave, watching the bearers who were slipping cords under Albine’s coffin in order that they might let it down gently. The bell was still tolling; but La Teuse must have been getting tired, for it tolled irregularly, as though it were becoming a little irritated at the length of the ceremony. The sun was growing hotter and the Solitaire’s shadow crept slowly over the grass and the grave mounds. When Abbé Mouret was obliged to step back in order to give the bearers room, his eyes lighted upon the marble tombstone of Abbé Caffin, that priest who also had loved, and who was now sleeping there so peacefully beneath the wild-flowers. Then, all at once, even as the coffin descended, supported by the cords, whose knots made it strain and creak, a tremendous uproar arose in the poultry-yard on the other side of the wall. The goat began to bleat. The ducks, the geese, and the turkeys raised their loudest calls and flapped their wings. The fowls all cackled at once. The yellow cock, Alexander, crowed forth his trumpet notes. The rabbits could even be heard leaping in their hutches and shaking their wooden floors. And, above all this lifeful uproar of the animal creation, a loud laugh rang out. There was a rustling of skirts. Desirée, with her hair streaming, her arms bare to the elbows, and her face crimson with triumph, burst into sight, her hands resting upon the coping of the wall. She had doubtless climbed upon the manure-heap. ‘Serge! Serge!’ she cried. At that moment Albine’s coffin had reached the bottom of the grave. The cords had just been withdrawn. One of the peasants was throwing the first shovelful of earth into the cavity. ‘Serge! Serge!’ Desirée cried, still more loudly, clapping her hands, ‘the cow has got a calf!’ THE END