"You are wrong. It was not right that you should be deprived of your grand-children's company on his account." Then Albert's mother, who had exhausted the limit of her boldness, was silenced, when Elizabeth could no longer keep back her tears. "My dear little girl, why are you crying?" "I don't know. It is nervousness." "I know it is, and I love you all the more for it. I shall always be with you. But why make your trouble harder to bear? Wait with perseverance, but with calmness. Occupy yourself with Marie Louise and Philippe. They are your reason for hope and you belong entirely to them at this time. Be busy, very busy. Fill your days. And pray." "I no longer know how." "Go back soon to Grenoble--I shall teach you. Good-by, my child. May God keep you." The two women kissed each other. Elizabeth watched the jaunting-car which took Mme. Derize to Uriage, until it disappeared round a corner and was hidden by a chestnut tree. "Why has she gone?" she sighed, when she could no longer see. After this departure her parents fled from deserted Uriage. Alone and made keen by sorrow, she experienced that melancholy, which, with the coming of autumn, arises from the earth at every step in the country, and which, until now, she had considered only as poet's imaginings. She understood now just what Albert had felt two years ago--the unhappiness of an incomplete or misunderstood life, so powerful to vivify all nature. The plane tree avenue, heaped up with thick, strong leaves, no longer hid the Chapel whose invitation, on that account, became more evident; but that was not where she chose to walk. She preferred the roads which go into the heart of the chestnut woods, and where, from time to time one glimpses the picturesque mountains. But she did not venture far because of her fear. Her children were surprised at her changed mood. She thought less about them than of her sorrow. In the evening when she saw the cattle come home and drink from the little pond, she hated this peace that the animals and their drivers inhaled. October enveloped her with an anguish in which she knew a charm. It was a pleasure to experience pain. Her entire household was conscious of this weakened condition. At last one day she received some news from Grenoble. Madame Derize, uneasy at not seeing her come back, wrote her a pressing letter, the ending of which revealed a power to foresee: "My dear Elizabeth," wrote the lady, "this time of year and loneliness are not good for you. And you are not thinking of Marie Louise and Philippe. It is time to occupy yourself with their studies, to give them companions for their work and play. You yourself need a little distraction and social intercourse. Come to Grenoble, I beg of you. We shall see each other often, shall we not? If you do not come this week, I shall come and bring you myself--because I am anxious about you, my child...."