"I don't know," said Urbain. For a moment they watched silently, while Angelot and Henriette left the others in the garden, and walked away together, turning towards the château, and then disappearing behind a clump of trees. "I know," said the Comtesse. "I told Hervé something of this plan of mine, and he approved highly: he has an old family affection for your brother. He is sending the young people to find Sophie and Lucie; they are out walking in the wood with Mademoiselle--Hélène is reading Italian in her own room." She seemed to add this as an after-thought, and the faintest smile curled Monsieur Urbain's lips as he heard her. "No danger, dear Comtesse," he felt inclined to say. "My boy's heart is in the woods and fields--and he is discreet, too. You might even trust him for five minutes with that beautiful, silent girl of yours." Had Madame de Sainfoy made some miscalculation as to her daughter's hours of study? or was it Hélène's own mistake? or had the sunshine and the waving woods, the barking of dogs, the chattering of workmen, all the flood of new life outside old Lancilly, made it impossible to sit reading in a chilly, thick-walled room and tempted the girl irresistibly to break her mother's strict rules. However it may have happened--when Angelot and Riette, laughing and talking, entered the wood beyond the château, not only square Sophie and tall Lucie and their fat little governess, but Mademoiselle Hélène herself, were found wandering along the soft path, through the glimmering maze of green flicked with gold.