The travellers reached their place of destination so early in the day, that, after a friendly greeting with Mr and Mrs Charles Seldon (though not without a degree of embarrassment on either side, from recollection of a certain proscribed topic), Walter excused himself from partaking their late dinner, and with a beating heart (in which, truth to tell, some undefinable fear mingled with delightful expectation) took his impatient way along the well-remembered footpaths that led through pleasant fields and orchards, by a short cut, to the Chateau de St Hilaire. He stopped for a moment at the old mill, near the entrance-gate of the domain, to exchange a friendly greeting with the miller's wife, who was standing at her door, and dropt him a curtsy of recognition. The mill belonged to the Manoir du Résnél, and its respectable rentiers were, he knew, humble friends of la petite Madelaine; so, in common kindness, he could do no otherwise than linger a moment, to make inquiries for _her_ welfare, and that of her fair cousin, and their respective families. It may be supposed that Walter's latent motive for so general, as well as particular an inquiry, was to gain from the reply something like a glance at the Carte du Pays he was about to enter--not without a degree of nervous trepidation, with the causelessness of which he reproached himself in vain, though he had resisted the temptation of putting one question to the Seldons, who might have drawn from it inferences of misgivings on his part, the existence of which he was far from acknowledging even to his own heart. "Mademoiselle Madelaine was at the Chateau that evening," the dame informed him--"and there was no other company, for M. le Marquis left it for Paris three days ago."--Walter drew breath more freely at _that_ article of intelligence.--"Some people had thought M. le Marquis would carry off Mademoiselle after all"--(Walter bit his lip);--"but now Monsieur was returned, doubtless"--and a look and simper of vast knowingness supplied the conclusion of the sentence. "Au reste--Mademoiselle was well, and as beautiful as ever; but for 'cette chère petite,' [meaning la petite Madelaine],--she was sadly changed of late, though she did not complain of illness--_she never_ complained, though everybody knew her home was none of the happiest, and (for what cause the good dame knew not) she was not so much as formerly at St Hilaire."