Their correspondence is now the only joy of the household. It is more frequent than it used to be. From afar Madame Guibert’s children try to shower their love upon her. Letters come from Jean Berlier in Africa. They are full of Marcel and his glorious death. In the last one Jean has told them of his return to Savoy at the end of May. At Le Maupas anxious eyes look down the deserted avenue, where now the chestnuts are proudly bearing their white candles. The young man coming slowly up the wooded hill that leads to the old house is no longer Isabelle Orlandi’s gay cavalier, though he has still kept his slim, lithe figure and his distinguished, confident bearing. But his brown face wears a more manly expression; his eyes have a surer and more discriminating glance. Leaving behind his careless youth, he has grown into a man who thinks and who knows what he wants. He arrived only the evening before. This morning he left Rose Villa and all along the road he has been breathing his native air, like one newly awakened. On the chilly earth, decked with mauve and lilac mists--like a maiden slowly opening her eyes and stirring aside the gauzy curtains of her bed--he catches the fresh beauty of spring and that joy of life which begins with the dawn. His eyes dwell admiringly on the delicate green of the trees and fields, the individual glory of the month of May, and he feels a happiness in the tender, new-born leaves budding on the hedges. To the left his glance searches for those three steeples, on which the tent of the sky seems to hang over the countryside: Belle-Combette, almost hidden in greenery; Montagnol, proud and grey, scarcely distinguishable from the walls of Pas-de-la-Fosse; and sweet Saint-Cassin, resting, like an old man seeking the shade, in a forest of chestnut trees. The scarps of the neighboring mountains lose their rugged shape in the morning light, and Nature under the clear sky smiles all over and trustfully displays her grace and charm, wherein may be read the promise of fruit and harvest. Jean turned round and saw from afar a sheet of pearl and gold, which was Lake Bourget, its sleeping waters bathed in sunshine. At the kiss of the beams the waters shivered voluptuously. The young man continued on his way. Standing out against the Chaloux hills, La Chênaie was welcoming the fresh air through its open windows. Pleasant memories came back to Jean of the time when he was twenty-five; of Isabelle’s red lips, expert alike in speech and kisses. He thought over his life and reached a conclusion which surprised him. “I have seen neither her nor Savoy for four years--or nearly that. It seems very much longer to me. I was a boy then, playing at life.”