"Isn't my Alsheim old?" said Jean to himself. Although he was very anxious not to be recognised, he approached the latticed door which opened on to the fields on this side, and if he did not see the workers, hidden by an unharnessed cart, he saw again with a friendly smile the yard of the old farm, a kind of road bordered with buildings which were only apparently framework with a little earth between the wooden beams, a demonstration of the everlasting strength of the chestnut which had furnished the jambs, the raising pieces, the wooden balconies, and the framework of the windows. No one heard him, no one saw him. He went on his way and his heart began to beat violently. For immediately after the farm of the Ramspachers, the path fell, at right angles, to an avenue of cherry-trees leading from the village to the house of M. Bastian. It was not probable that in this bad weather the Mayor would be far from home. In a few moments Jean would speak with him; he would meet Odile; he would find some means of knowing if she were betrothed. Odile. All Jean's early childhood was full of that name. The daughter of M. Bastian had formerly been the playfellow of Lucienne and of Jean when the evolution of M. Oberlé had not been affirmed and known in the country-side; a little later she had become the charming vision which Jean saw again at the Munich Gymnasium when he thought of Alsheim; the young, growing girl, whom one saw in the holidays, on Sundays in church, whom one saluted without approaching when Monsieur or Madame Oberlé were present, but also the passer-by of the grape harvest and of the woods, and the walker who had a smile for Lucienne or for Jean met at the turn of a road. What secret enchantment did this girl of Alsheim possess, brought up entirely in the country, except for two or three years passed with the nuns of Notre-Dame in Strasburg, not worldly--less brilliant than Lucienne, more silent and more grave? The same, no doubt, as the country where she was born. Jean had left her, as he had left Alsace, without being able to forget her. He had forbidden himself to see her during his last short stay in Alsheim, in order to prove himself and to find out if truly the memory of Odile would resist a long separation, studies, and travels. He had thought: "If she marries in the interval, it will be a proof that she has never thought of me, and I shall not weep for her." She had not married. Nothing showed that she was engaged. And certainly Jean was going to see her again.