“You have but to lift your little finger,” Guillaume would say, “to bring down the prison-walls.” Under this uneven and rugged husk, Gilberte discovered the most exquisite and delicate of natures, a poet’s nature that was galled by all its surroundings, a child’s nature that his mother had kept in to the verge of pain. And it was often from the point of view of a child that Gilberte was glad to be with him. They would laugh at the least thing, with that childish laughter, which is so good just because it has no excuse except our need of laughter. They longed to run and skip and play. “Oh dear, how young I am!” Guillaume would exclaim. “I shall be two next year,” Gilberte declared. They could be serious also. She asked him about his writing, wanted to read what he had printed. He refused, on the pretext that he was not satisfied. Nevertheless, he showed her a letter from the editor of an important review, a letter teeming with compliments. He lent her his favorite books and she devoured them. Mme. de la Vaudraye was in ecstasies. She was now certain that her dream would be realized. She was too clever to betray her delight and hid it under demonstrations of gratitude: “How sweet of you, my dear Gilberte, to tame that wild savage! You will make quite a courtier of him.” And she added, with a sigh: “Oh, if you could only turn him into a more attentive son and make him more grateful to his mother for all the sacrifices she has made for him!” The discord between Mme. de la Vaudraye and Guillaume was Gilberte’s greatest grief. Her love of harmony prompted her to make continual endeavours at reconciliation which were bound to fail as much because of the mother’s arid artificiality as of the son’s stubbornness and reserve. She had to give up the attempt. But she suffered another pain, arising from her extreme sensitiveness: at the close of day, she could no longer go to the ruined summer-house without a certain sense of discomfort. Her unknown friend was faithful to the daily tryst which they had made with their dreams; and, though Gilberte herself never failed to keep it, she felt as though she had done him some wrong. With her eyes fixed on the distant mountains melting into the deep blue of the heavens, she let herself drift into vague reveries, far, very far away from the homely valley where her first friend patiently waited for her thoughts to return to him. It was at such times, when the darkness overtook her amidst this delightful torpor, that she seemed to be coming back from a long journey. She was almost angry with herself. But why? She could not have said. One day, at five o’clock, as she was going down to her garden, she received a note from Mme. de la Vaudraye. “MY DEAR GILBERTE, “Guillaume and I are going for a stroll in the Forest of Andaine. It is such a fine evening: do come with us.”