His flash of desire and feeling of uneasiness in the society of his young cousin seemed to disappear when his musical enthusiasm drooped. His masterpiece must be deferred to a more suitable time, and his passion, which he also seemed able to advance or retard, must be similarly postponed. He again began to treat Pauline as an old friend or long since wedded wife, who would fall into his arms as soon as ever he chose to open them. Since April they had not shut themselves up in the house so much, and the fresh air brought life and colour to their cheeks. The big room was deserted, while they rambled about the rocky shore of Bonneville, studying the best situations for the piles and stockades. And, after dabbling about in the water, they came home as tired and as easy in mind as in the far-away days of childhood. When Pauline sometimes played the famous March of Death to tease him, Lazare would cry out: 'Do be quiet! What a lot of rubbish!' On the evening of the carpenter's visit, however, Chanteau was seized with another attack of gout. He now had a fresh attack almost every month. The salicylic treatment, which at first had given him some relief, seemed in the end to add to the violence of his seizures. For a fortnight Pauline remained a close prisoner at her uncle's bedside. Lazare, who was continuing his investigations on the beach, then invited Louise to go with him, by way of freeing her from the cries of the sick man, which quite frightened her. As she occupied the guests' bedroom, the one just above Chanteau's, she had to stuff her fingers into her ears and bury her head in the pillows at night-time in order to get some sleep. But when she was out of doors she became radiant again, enjoying the walk immensely and forgetting all about the poor man groaning in the house.