Marie Louise and Philippe, who had visited the grande Chartreuse with the Passerats, were very much disappointed. Ruins do not interest children. They want well-built houses, and the newer they are, the more fascinating to them, because it is life that appeals to them. But they consoled themselves by setting out their meal on a stone supported by wooden props, a rustic table that they had discovered under the shelter of the branches, at the end of a lawn behind the keeper's house. The latter consented to prepare an omelette for them which completed their lunch, after which he took the children, including "Brains," to visit his poultry yard and his rabbit hutch, of which he was very proud. "Will you follow me?" said Albert to Elizabeth. He knew the place, as he had been there in his early youth. After a few steps in the direction of the mountain, which cut them off from all habitation, she uttered a cry of surprise. Before them an intact cloister arch reared its graceful curve under the entangled dome formed by the trees, enormous larches, evergreen and symbolizing protection, and white birches with silvery leaves. The old well, because of its covering of moss and wild flowers, could scarcely be distinguished from all this mass of verdure. And too, the bare roots of stunted fir trees, which had grown there, as in the midst of a forest, had clutched and loosened the stones. How did these stones still hold? By what miracle had time respected the purity of that arch which framed a whole portion of the forest and even a corner of sky, and stood there like a statue in a garden? The forest was already encroaching upon it and entwining it; wrapped in its embrace, it would soon disappear in the grass, and one would have to stoop to find any trace of it. Thus threatened, surrounded on all sides by a thick mass of branches and caressed by autumn in that wild landscape encircled by the mountains, it was only by its charm that it evoked the thought of man in the midst of Nature, and one knew that it was doomed. Elizabeth looked at the arch, and Albert, a little behind, reserved all his emotion to observe her. "I am afraid," he was thinking. "She is so delicate. She has been living for two years, almost three, with an attitude of uncertainty. How tired she must be! She needs peace. I shall know how to give it back to her. Now, yes, now, she is at one with me in my life, as we are both here...." She had turned around to him, and in the big wide-open eyes which gazed upon him he no longer read that vaguely frightened expression which was habitual to her, but, instead, he saw fear, that fear which we experience from an immediate danger, or a vision fixed and near at hand. He quickly went to her: "Elizabeth--what is the matter with you?" "Nothing, nothing." He wished to take her in his arms. "Your eyes, your dear eyes, what did they see in the woods?"