Gilberte handed her the letter. Mme. de la Vaudraye read it and shrugged her shoulders: “Are you so very rich?” The girl gave her another letter, received that morning, in which the Dieppe solicitor furnished her with her quarterly statement. Mme. de la Vaudraye started: “Impossible! Oh, my child, you must never let Guillaume know!” “How can I? He has gone away!” “And you sit there and say that so quietly! Doesn’t his going distress you? Don’t you love him?” “Yes, I love him.” “Then write to him.” “Write to him?” “Yes, tell him to come back ... tell him that his position makes no difference to you....” She spoke with a certain embarrassment: and this made Gilberte feel awkward. However, she said: “I can’t write. Guillaume alone can solve the question that lies between him and his conscience.” Mme. de la Vaudraye gave an impatient gesture and cried: “You can’t write! What a ridiculous scruple! Is it any worse to write to a young man than to go walking about the country with him, as I hear you did yesterday? What! My son fights a duel because of you, he leaves me because of you; and, when I, his mother, ask you ...! Well, what’s the matter? What are you looking at me like that for?” A chair suddenly pushed aside, an overturned flower-vase bore evidence to Mme. de la Vaudraye’s burst of irritation. She flew out again: “Oh, yes, it’s all very well, but one can’t stand that eternal gentleness of yours! Here am I, telling you how wrong you are, and you listen in such a queer way that I end by putting myself in the wrong. One always feels with you as though one were in front of an indulgent judge, who graciously forgives one’s faults. And yet it’s you who are at fault!” “Why, of course!” said Gilberte, all confusion. “Then why do I look like a prisoner being judged?” “Oh, but you don’t!” “Yes, I do. It’s all very well for you to bend your head and all very well for me to rave and yell: any one would think that I was to blame and that you were making allowances. You must admit, it is enough to make one lose all patience.” Presumably, Mme. de la Vaudraye was afraid of growing still more impatient, for she went away without another word. Gilberte called on her, next day, and kissed her affectionately. There was not a word said about their difference of the day before. They saw each other every day. According to the weather, they walked in the town or walked about the neighbourhood, leaning on each other’s arm and heedless of any but themselves. But they invariably returned at the same hour. “Ah, it’s five o’clock: here are the ladies coming back!” people said. This regularity was due to Gilberte. As soon as she was free, she went to the ruined summer-house and sat there until dinnertime. “But why this hurry?” asked Mme. de la Vaudraye. “You never give me a minute over.” “And what about my daily appointment?” said Gilberte, laughing. “Your appointment?”