The forest which I had entered was very dense and wild, so that I had with difficulty made my way to the spot where the bird had fallen; but at a short distance from me wound a cart-road, and along this road were riding on horseback my beauty and the man who had overtaken me on the night before; I recognised him by his moustache. They were riding softly, in silence, holding each other by the hand; their horses were barely putting one foot before the other, lazily swaying from side to side and handsomely stretching out their long necks. When I had recovered from my first alarm ... precisely that, alarm: I can give no other appellation to the feeling which suddenly seized upon me.... I fairly bored into her with my eyes. How beautiful she was! how enchantingly her graceful form moved toward me amid the emerald green! Soft shadows, tender reflections glided over her--over her long grey habit, over her slender, slightly-bent neck, over her faintly-rosy face, over her glossy black hair, which escaped luxuriantly from under her low-crowned hat. But how shall I transmit that expression of utter, passionate bliss of a person passionate to the point of speechlessness, which breathed forth from her features? Her head seemed to be bending beneath the burden of it; moist, golden sparks glittered in her dark eyes, which were half-concealed by her eyelashes; they gazed nowhere, those happy eyes, and the slender brows drooped over them. An irresolute, child-like smile--the smile of profound happiness, strayed over her lips; it seemed as though excess of happiness had wearied and even broken her a little, as a flower in full bloom sometimes breaks its own stem. Both her hands lay powerless: one, in the hand of the man who was riding by her side, the other on her horse's mane.