'Take care!' cried Lazare; 'there is a hole there, you know, and the bottom of it is full of big stones.' 'Oh, yes, I know; don't be frightened----Oh! do come and look at this huge crab I have just caught!' The cool waves splashed round their legs and the fresh salt breezes from the sea intoxicated them. All their old rambles were resumed--the long walks, the pleasant rests on the sands, the hasty refuge sought in some hollow of the cliffs at the approach of sudden showers, and the return home at nightfall along the dusky paths. Nothing seemed changed; the sea, with its ceaselessly varying aspect, still stretched out into the boundless distance. Little forgotten incidents returned to their memory with all the vividness of present facts. Lazare seemed to be still six-and-twenty and Pauline sixteen. When he casually happened to pull her about with his old playful familiarity, she seemed greatly embarrassed, however, and was thrilled with delicious confusion. But she in no way tried to avoid him, for she had no thought of the possibility of evil. Fresh life began to animate them; there were whispered words, causeless laughter, long intervals of silence which left them quivering. The most trivial incidents--a request for some bread, a remark about the weather, the good-nights they wished each other as they went to bed--seemed full of a new and strange meaning. All their past life was reviving within them and thrilling them with the tenderness that comes of the remembrance of former happiness. Why should they have felt anxious? They did not resist the spell; the sea, with its ceaseless monotonous voice, seemed to lull and fill them with pleasant languor.