Such agony overcame her at this thought that companionship of any kind was insupportable. She made some excuse for prolonging her walk in another direction, while Ermengarde took the most direct way home, under the steep on which the monastery garden spread its fertile terraces to the south, showering vine-trails, fig-branches and prickly pears down the walls to the very edge of the mule-path. But Agatha turned aside and climbed the slope where the cultivator's pink-walled house stood, or rather reclined, among fruit-trees and pergolas, and passed on and up to the convent steps, weariness of mind and body reacting upon each other to such a degree that she would fain have flung herself down on the wet herbage and risen no more. She had definitely asked the man who demanded and implored her love to renounce for her sake the vice that had brought him to ruin, and he had definitely refused to do so. He loved her; he besought, almost commanded her love, but would give up nothing for her. Even while proclaiming his own worthlessness he had claimed her entire devotion and self-sacrifice. What was such love worth? And what was such a man worth? Could he even be called a man and not rather a petulant, dissolute boy, heedless of all but his own comfort and enjoyment, unable to deny himself the gratification of any passion for any sake? And yet--he had shown some compunction in regard to his mother, had been really grieved to cause her pain and such privation as had been hitherto unknown to her. That is to say, he was not entirely without feeling for the woman who had loved and blessed him from his earliest breath, was not absolutely unnatural and unfilial. And yet Agatha loved him, in wild wonder that such as he should kindle love in any heart; and yet she felt that he had no real love for her, though he required and desired her whole heart's devotion.