"To the mountains of the Forez," he replied. "Write to me at the village of Huriel, which is my birth-place and where we have relations. They will send me your letters." "But can you travel so far with that wound in your head? Isn't it dangerous?" "Oh no!" he said, "it is nothing. I wish _the other's_ head had been as hard as mine!" When I was alone I began to think over with amazement all that must have happened that night in the forest without my hearing or detecting the slightest thing. I was still more surprised when, passing once more, in broad daylight, the spot where the dance had taken place, I saw that since midnight persons had returned to mow the grass and dig over the ground to remove all trace of what had happened. In short, from one direction persons had come twice to make things safe at this particular point; from the other, Thérence had contrived to communicate with her brother; and, besides all this, a burial had been performed, without the faintest appearance or the lightest sound having warned me of what was taking place, although the night was clear and I had gone from end to end of the silent woods looking and listening with the utmost attention. It turned my mind to the difference between the habits, and indeed the characters, of these woodland people and the laborers of the open country. On the plains, good and evil are too clearly seen not to make the inhabitants from their youth up submit to the laws and behave with prudence. But in the forests, where the eyes of their fellows can be escaped, men invoke no justice but that of God or the devil, according as they are well or ill intentioned. When I reached the lodges the sun was up; the Head-Woodsman had gone to his work; Joseph was still asleep; Thérence and Brulette were talking together under the shed. They asked me why I had got up so early, and I noticed that Thérence was uneasy lest I had seen or heard something. I behaved as if I knew nothing, and had not gone further than the adjoining wood. Joseph soon joined us, and I remarked that he looked much better than when we arrived. "Yet I have hardly slept all night," he replied; "I was restless till nearly day-break; but I think the reason was that the fever which has weakened me so much left me last evening, for I feel stronger and more vigorous than I have been for a long time." Thérence, who understood fevers, felt his pulse, and then her face, which looked very tired and depressed, brightened suddenly. "See!" she cried; "the good God sends us at least one happiness; here is our patient on the road to recovery! The fever has gone, and his blood is already recovering strength." "If you want to know what I have felt this night," said Joseph, "you must promise not to call it a dream; but here it is--In the first place, however, tell me if Huriel got off without a wound, and if the other did not get more than he wanted. Have you had any news from the forest of Chambérat?"