"We are not going in the right direction; our backs are turned to our starting-point." "Do you want me to go back over that infernal rock?" "No, but let us go to the right." "That is just the wrong direction." Thérèse insisted that she was not mistaken. Laurent refused to yield; he even lost his temper, and spoke in an irritated tone, as if that were a subject for quarrelling. Thérèse yielded at last, and followed where he chose to go. She was completely crushed by emotion and sadness. Laurent had spoken to her in a tone which she had never dreamed of assuming with Catherine, even when the old servant angered her. She forgave him because she felt that he was ill; but his state of painful excitement alarmed her so much the more. Thanks to Laurent's obstinacy, they lost themselves in the forest, walked about four hours, and did not return to the hotel until daybreak. The walking in the fine, heavy sand of the forest is very fatiguing. Thérèse could hardly drag herself along, and Laurent, revivified by that violent exercise, did not think of slackening his pace out of regard for her. He walked ahead, constantly asserting that he had found the right path, asking her from time to time if she were tired, and never suspecting that, when she answered no, her purpose was to spare him any regret for having caused the misadventure. The next day, Laurent had forgotten all about it; he had suffered a severe shock, however, from that strange attack, but it is a peculiarity of excessively nervous temperaments that they recover from such shocks as if by magic. Indeed, Thérèse had occasion to notice, that on the day following that lamentable experience it was she who was utterly exhausted, while he seemed to have acquired fresh strength. She had not slept, expecting to find him suffering from some serious illness; but he took a bath, and felt quite disposed to repeat the excursion. He seemed to have forgotten how disastrous that nocturnal experience had been to the honeymoon! The melancholy impression soon wore away, so far as Thérèse was concerned. When they returned to Paris, she imagined that nothing had changed between them; but that same evening Laurent chose to draw a caricature of Thérèse and himself wandering through the forest by moonlight, he with his wild, distraught look, she with her torn gown and her fatigue-stricken body. Artists are so accustomed to make caricatures of one another, that Thérèse was amused by this one; but, although she, too, had plenty of facility and humor at the end of her pencil, she would not have caricatured Laurent for anything in the world; and when she saw him sketch from a comical standpoint that nocturnal scene which had so tortured her, she was deeply grieved. It seemed to her that there are certain sorrows of the heart which can never have a ridiculous side.