That was the only dark spot that troubled Gilberte’s serenity: the more or less discreet attentions which all those men paid her. Simare the younger went far more cleverly to work and tried to inspire confidence with a pretence of delicacy by which Gilberte allowed herself to be taken in. But Beaufrelant and Le Hourteulx showed no pity: they pursued her relentlessly, speaking to her, not unnaturally, as to a woman who knows what life is and who could not well take offence at a declaration or even at the terms in which it was made. Poor Gilberte did not take offence, but she was very much surprised; and the sighs and transports of those two men of forty bored her terribly. She avoided them and she also had to avoid young Lartiste, who tried the effect of poetry and fired the most passionate verses of Musset and Verlaine at her; the brother too of the Demoiselles Bottentuit, a schoolboy who was only let out on Thursdays and Sundays and who, the third time he saw her, threatened to kill himself at her feet; and lastly a cousin of Mlle. du Bocage, who was engaged to the elder Charmeron girl and who offered to break off the marriage and abandon a very good match if it caused her the faintest annoyance. She no longer enjoyed at the Logis the atmosphere of peace and isolation so dear to her. Adèle had to defend the door, with the vigilance of a watch-dog, against the daring suitors who tried to obtain admission to her mistress upon some pretext: “Madame is at home to nobody; I have positive instructions.” The old servant saw through the disguise of M. le Hourteulx, who appeared dressed up as a beggar, and of Beaufrelant, who, in cap and blouse, came round with a green-grocer’s barrow. Gilberte could not go for a stroll in her garden without seeing the figure of one or other of those importunate gentlemen on the right, in the next garden which ran from the castle down to the river. At nightfall, she was conscious of shadowy forms prowling round the manor-house. She felt herself spied upon on every side, stalked like a beast of the chase. * * * * * It was Easter Sunday. After dinner, Adèle and her husband went to the fair, just outside the town. Gilberte was left alone. It had been raining; and the fresh smell of wet leaves and moist earth came through the open window of the boudoir which she had made into her study. The book which she was reading in an absent-minded way dropped to her lap and she sat dreaming, with her gaze lost in the blackness of the trees. And, quite without reason--for the least sound would have struck her ear--she was overcome with an indescribable sense of dread, which increased from moment to moment. The silence seemed to her unnatural and awful. The darkness was heavy with menace; and she could not take her eyes from it, sat spellbound by the unknown peril which she felt was there.