She shut her eyes, and heard Bernard say to Madame de la Trave: “Really, that Balion pair are beyond everything! I’ll let them have something they won’t forget.” “Take care, don’t do anything in a hurry; we don’t want them to go away, they know a little too much: and then don’t forget the estates: Balion’s the only person who really knows the boundaries.” And Madame de la Trave added in reply to some remark of Bernard’s that Thérèse did not hear: “All the same, be careful, don’t trust her too far; watch her movements, and never let her go into the kitchen or dining-room alone.... No, she hasn’t fainted: she’s asleep, or pretending to be....” Thérèse opened her eyes again: Bernard stood in front of her; he held a glass and said: “There, drink that: it’s a glass of port, it will do you good.” And as he always did what he had made up his mind to do he went into the kitchen, and proceeded to lose his temper. Thérèse heard Balionte’s raucous _patois_ and thought: “Bernard has clearly been frightened: I wonder why?” At that moment he came back. “I think you would eat with more appetite in the dining-room than in your own room. I have given orders for your place to be laid there again.” This was the Bernard she had known at the time of the enquiry: the ally who wanted to save her at any price. And now he was unreservedly anxious she should get well. Yes, it was clear he had been frightened. Thérèse watched him, sitting opposite her, and stirring the fire, but she could not guess what those great round eyes of his were seeing in the flames:--the red and green drawing from the _Petit Parisien_. Incessant as the rain had been, not a single puddle was left in the sand of Argelouse. In the very depths of winter, after an hour’s sunshine, one could walk dry-shod in country sandals, along the road, on that dry and yielding carpet of pine-needles. Bernard was out shooting all day, but came back to meals: he was anxious about Thérèse, and more attentive than he had ever been. There was but little constraint in their relations. He made her weigh herself every three days, and not smoke more than two cigarettes after each meal. On Bernard’s advice Thérèse took long walks: “Exercise is the best digestive,” he would say. She was no longer afraid of Argelouse: it seemed as though the pines were moving further off, opening their ranks, and signalling to her to make her escape.