He held the iron lamp, hanging at the end of its hooked stick; and to relieve his conscience, to do his duty as a lover, and perhaps in that way to change the current of his thoughts, perhaps to set at rest the amorous anxiety with which he was assailed,--to force himself to return, heart and soul, to Livette, and, who knows?--so hard to fathom is man with his background of devil!--perhaps, with her and unknown to her, to satisfy to some extent the passion kindled by the other--for all these reasons together, more inextricably mingled than the twigs of the climbing rose-bushes, he said to himself: "I will kiss her!" He had never done that thing,--except in the presence of the old people,--but the Renaud of that evening was not the Renaud of other days, in his feeling for Livette. The powerful leaven of his wild nature was swelling his veins to bursting. In very truth, he had the fever,--at all events, a species of fever. All his nerves were overstrained; in his eyes, even the most indifferent objects wore an unusual look. And in Livette he saw, in spite of himself, reproaching himself bitterly therefor, things which ordinarily he refused to see. And as, being always dressed in the Arlesian fashion, she wore the _fichu_ of white muslin crossed upon her breast so low as to afford a glimpse, beneath the gold chain and cross, of the white throat, above the meeting of the stiff folds, laid neatly one upon another, his passionate gaze fell upon that spot, amid the modest arrangement of muslin, prettily called "the chapel." In his left hand was the lamp, which he held shoulder-high, and as far away as possible, to avoid the drops of oil,--and he wound his right arm about Livette's waist as she placed her hand upon the iron rail. At every step they climbed, he felt the play of the muscles of his fiancée's youthful frame, imparting to the arm about her waist a soothing languor that ran through his whole being,--and yet his heart did not rejoice thereat; and he realized that, ordinarily, if the end of the velvet ribbon in Livette's head-dress touched his face, it caused a sweeter thrill of pleasure in his blood, and more than all else, a pleasure which there was no mistaking. And, thereupon, he grew vexed with himself as for a failure of duty, he was oppressed by a presentiment of disaster, vague but inevitable. And she felt more and more keenly the rebound of his emotions. She was conscious that her peace of mind was endangered. Something certainly was against her. The arm, which had sometimes been about her waist as now, no longer seemed to be her lover's arm, but a mere ordinary man's. She suffered, and did not understand. The look she saw in his eyes was a strange look from him, without affection, without pity even. She knew him well, honest Renaud, her promised husband, and yet she was afraid of him as of a stranger!