In the mean time, Walter's year of probation was fast drawing to a close; and his return to St Hilaire, and all thereon depending, was looked forward to with very different feelings by himself (the happy expectant!) by the inhabitants of the Chateau, and by its still occasional inmate, the little Maiden of the Manoir, whose meditations on the subject were not the less frequent and profound, because to her it was obviously one of little personal interest. Monsieur and Madame de St Hilaire had watched with intense anxiety the fancied progress of the Marquis d'Arval in supplanting the absent Walter in the affections of their daughter. But experience had taught them that the surest means of effecting their wishes was to refrain from expressing them to the dutiful Adrienne. So they looked on, and kept silence, with hopes that became fainter as the decisive period approached, and they observed that the lovers' correspondence was unslackened, and the Marquis made no interesting communication to them of that success on his part which, he was well aware, they would receive as most gratifying intelligence. On the contrary, he found it necessary, about this time, to make a journey to Paris, and to his estates in Languedoc; but as he still seemed devoted to Adrienne, and his devotions were evidently accepted with the sweetest complacency, the bewildered parents still cherished a belief that the young people mutually understood each other--that d'Arval's temporary absence had been concerted between them, from motives of prudence and delicacy with respect to Walter, and that when the latter arrived, their daughter would either require him to release her from her rash engagement, or empower them to acquaint him with her change of sentiments.