Julie dared not pretend not to know how many days and nights had passed since that brief interview. So she said nothing. Julien carried his respect for her so far as not to continue the conversation himself, and the longer the silence endured the less able was Julie to summon the presence of mind to break it without betraying the emotion she felt. At last they reached the pavilion. "Do you not think," he said, "that you should take your arm from mine now, so that your people may not see me? then I will follow you at a little distance until I have seen your door close behind you." "Yes," she replied; "but what will my people think to see me returning alone and on foot at such an hour? The best way is for me to go through the pavilion and through my garden; then they will think that Monsieur Marcel brought me back that way." That seemed in truth the best plan. Julien had his key in his pocket. "I will go and wake my mother," he said, "and tell her to get up; for I told her, as I passed, not to sit up for me. She thinks that I have been to take supper with Marcel." "Don't wake her, I forbid it. To tell her all our adventures would take too long now. She would be distressed, perhaps, being half asleep. To-morrow you can tell her everything. Open the garden door for me, and I will run home without making any noise. Thanks, and adieu!" To pass through the narrow passage way leading from the street door to the garden door, inside the pavilion, they had to walk several seconds in absolute darkness. In that straitened household no lamps were kept burning needlessly, and Babet came for the day only and did not sleep in the house. Julien went first, opened the garden, bowed low to Madame d'Estrelle and immediately closed the door, to prove to her that he never used it and that he should not presume to follow her, even with his eyes, along the paths through which she glided like a ghost. Such perfect discretion, such unswerving respect, such delicate, thoughtful, untiring, really serviceable devotion touched Madame d'Estrelle profoundly. It was a magnificent June night. She knew that by knocking on the window of her bedroom, which was on the ground floor, looking on the garden, she could summon Camille, who was sitting up for her. She knew too that Camille's vigil consisted in enjoying a good nap on the best couch in the apartment. She thought that she might without unkindness allow her to keep vigil in that way a few moments more; and feeling that her heart was overflowing with emotion, her mind fairly drowned by conflicting thoughts, she could not resist the temptation to sit down beside the basin in which the moon was reflected, clear and motionless, as in a Venetian mirror.