And Fernande de Courson drove home that afternoon in Pere Lebrun's carriole feeling like a soldier on the eve of battle. She hardly spoke to anyone the whole of that evening, and Laurent had serious cause to complain of her lack of responsiveness. She pleaded fatigue from her expedition and went early to bed. But the next morning she was up betimes and tramping soon after sunrise in the direction of the woods of La Frontenay. II Women have often, as a sex, been comprehensively accused of not being truthful--of being full of deceit or at best of guile. It is averred that women will stoop to ways and means for gaining their own ends which men will disdain to utilize for theirs. Be that as it may, this chronicle, not being a dissertation, nor yet an argument one way or the other, but a faithful transcription of events, it behoves us to say that Fernande de Courson did sprain her ankle just as she was skirting the silent pool and treading through the tangle of wild iris and budding meadowsweet; also, that the sprain caused her acute agony; that the water of the pool looked deliciously cool and healing, and that she had no other thought at the back of her mind but the desire to alleviate the pain, when she took off her shoe and her stocking, soaked her handkerchief in the cold water and then laid it as a compress round her ankle. To say that Ronnay de Maurel was at the time very far from her thoughts would perhaps be putting it a little too strongly; but he was far enough--shall we say?--from her immediate mental vision to cause her considerable surprise by his sudden appearance through the thicket, right in front of her, whilst she was reclining full length on a carpet of moss with the sheaf of bluebells held to her face and an impish glint of sunlight playing with the tendrils of her fair hair and with the tips of her bare toes. Now de Maurel, had he seen her before she caught sight of him, would undoubtedly have beaten a precipitate retreat. But he was apt to walk along buried in his own thoughts--thoughts of Prussian or Italian campaigns for the most part--and seeing little but the dome of leaves above him, or the squirrels that ran away at his approach; nor did he expect to see anyone beside the pool. At times, certainly, a labourer or a charcoal burner, or a couple of children violet-poaching, would cross the small clearing at the far end of the water; but, as a rule, he had the place to himself, and loved it for its loneliness and its solitude. Whilst Fernande not only did expect to see someone here, but after the pain in her foot had become easier, every one of her senses became on the alert to catch the sound of a footfall that might be drawing nigh. She heard the approach of a heavy footstep from quite a considerable distance; it was unmistakable, because of the slight dragging sound caused by one leg being weaker than the other.