But Léon hastily took some silver from his pocket and seized Emma’s arm. The beadle stood dumbfounded, not able to understand this untimely munificence when there were still so many things for the stranger to see. So calling him back, he cried⁠—

“Sir! sir! The steeple! the steeple!”

“No, thank you!” said Léon.

“You are wrong, sir! It is four hundred and forty feet high, nine less than the great pyramid of Egypt. It is all cast; it⁠—”

Léon was fleeing, for it seemed to him that his love, that for nearly two hours now had become petrified in the church like the stones, would vanish like a vapour through that sort of truncated funnel, of oblong cage, of open chimney that rises so grotesquely from the cathedral like the extravagant attempt of some fantastic brazier.

“But where are we going?” she said.