At length the same thing became evident to Nathalie. How the revelation was made to her I do not know; but sudden it must have been, for I met her one day in the poplar-field, walking hurriedly along with an extraordinary expression of despair in her countenance. I know not why, but the thought at once occurred to me that the Rhône ran rapid and deep not far off, and I threw myself across her path. She started like a guilty thing, but did not resist when I took her hand and led her back slowly toward the farm-house. We had nearly reached it in silence, when she suddenly stopped, and bursting into tears, turned away into a by-lane where was a little bench under an elm. Here she sat down and sobbed for a long time, while I stood by. At length she raised her head and asked me, “Do morality and religion require self-sacrifice even to the end—even to making half a life a desert, even to heart-breaking, even unto death?” “It scarcely belongs to a selfish mortal to counsel such virtue,” I replied; “but it is because it is exercised here and there, now and then, once in a hundred years, that man can claim some affinity with the divine nature.” A smile of ineffable sweetness played about the poor old girl’s lips. She wiped her eyes, and began talking of the changing aspect of the season, and how the trees day by day more rapidly shed their leaves, and how the Rhône had swelled within its ample bed, and of various topics apparently unconnected with her frame of mind, but all indicating that she felt the winter was coming—a long and dreary winter for her. At this moment Fanfreluche, who had missed her, came down the lane barking with fierce joy; and she took the poor little beast in her arms, and exhaled the last bitter feeling that tormented her in these words: “Thou at least lovest me—because I have fed thee!” In her humility she seemed now to believe that her only claim to love was her charity; and that even this claim was not recognized except by a dog!