The climax of his uneasiness was reached, however, when, just as his lessons were to begin, he heard his mother propose to Cécile to go down into the garden. What would she say when he was not there? He watched them from the window; Cécile’s slender figure and quiet movements were those of a well-born, well-bred woman, while Ida, still handsome, but loud in her style and costume, affected the manners of a young girl. For the first time Jack felt his lessons to be very long, and only breathed freely again when they were all together walking in the woods. But on this day his mother’s presence disturbed the harmony. She had no comprehension of love, and saw it only as something utterly ridiculous. But the worst of all was the sudden respect she entertained for _les convenances_. She recalled the young people, bade them “not to wander away so far, but to keep in sight,” and then she looked at the doctor in a significant way. Jack saw more than once that his mother grated on the old doctor’s nerves; but the forest was so lovely, Cécile so affectionate, and the few words they exchanged were so mingled with the sweet clatter of birds and the humming of bees, that by degrees the poor boy forgot his terrible companion. But Ida wished to make a sensation, so they stopped at the forester’s. Mère Archambauld was delighted to see her old mistress, paid her many compliments, but asked not a question in regard to D’Argenton, her keen personal sense telling her that she had best not. But the sight of this good creature, for a long time so intimately connected with their life at Aulnettes, was too much for Ida. Without waiting for the lunch so carefully prepared by Mother Archambauld, she rose suddenly from her chair, as suddenly as if in answer to a summons unheard by the others, and went swiftly through the forest paths to her old home at Aulnettes. The tower was more enshrouded than ever in its green foliage, and the blinds were closely drawn. Ida stood in lonely silence, listening to the tale told with silent eloquence by these gray stones. Then she broke a branch from the clematis that threw its sprays over the wall, and inhaled the breath of its starry white blossoms. “What is it, dear mother?” said Jack, who had hastened to follow her. “Ah!” she said, with rapidly falling tears, “you know I have so much buried here!” Indeed the house, in its melancholy silence and with the Latin inscription over the door, resembled a tomb. She dried her eyes, but for that evening her gayety was gone. In vain did Cécile, who had been told that Madame D’Argenton was separated from her husband, try with minor cares to efface the painful impression of the day; in vain did Jack seek to interest her in all his projects for the future. “You see, my child,” she said, on her way home, “that it is not best for me to come here with you. I have suffered too much, and the wound is too recent.”