Not once did Ralph come to see her. She found in her room flowers and fruit which his nurse brought her, books and magazines. Ralph kept out of sight in the little lanes which wound between the vineyards on the ridges hard by. He watched her from a distance and poured forth to her, in his heart, long speeches, teeming with the passion that grew more intense every day. He gathered from her movements and her supple carriage that life was welling up in her, like an almost dried-up spring into which fresh water flows again. A dusk was falling over the hours of terror, the sinister faces, the corpses and the crimes and over and above forgetfulness there was the expansion of a tranquil happiness, serious and unconscious, sheltered from the past and even from the future. “You are happy, lady with the green eyes,” he murmured. “Happiness is a state of mind which allows one to live in the present. While suffering nourishes itself on painful memories and hopes by which it is not duped, happiness mingles itself with all the little things of everyday life and transforms them into elements of serenity and joy. Yes, you are happy. When you pluck the flowers or stretch yourself out on your lounge chair, you do it with an air of contentment.” On the twentieth day came a letter from him inviting her to go for a motor drive one morning the following week. He had important things to discuss with her. Without hesitating, she wrote to accept the invitation. On the appointed morning she walked along the little rocky lanes which brought her down to the high road where Ralph was waiting. When she caught sight of him, she stopped short in a sudden, disquieted confusion—like a woman who asks herself at a solemn moment whither she is directing her steps and whither circumstances are taking her. But he came to her quickly and signed to her to be silent. It was for him to say the words that must be said. “I did not doubt that you would come,” he said. “You knew that we must see one another again because this tragic business is not yet at an end and certain parts of the problem still await solution. Which they are, is of little importance to you. You have given me a commission to arrange everything, to solve everything and to do everything. You will simply obey me. You will let yourself be guided by my hand, and whatever happens, you will no longer be afraid. That is over, the fear which overwhelms and presents visions of hell. Isn’t that so? You will smile beforehand at the things that happen, and welcome them as friends.” He held out his hand. She allowed him to press hers. She would have liked to speak and tell him that she was grateful, that she trusted him. But she must have understood the vanity of such words, for she was silent. They started and passed through the old village of Royat, with its hot baths. The hands of the church clock pointed to half-past eight. It was a Saturday, the fifteenth of August. The mountains rose under the sunniest of skies.