It is hard work being always cheery when others groan in the doldrums. It is not easy to shake off the grip of fatalism in the society of a fatalist. Toinon, despite her efforts, receiving no encouragement--feeding as it were on her own fuel--in spite of brave resolutions, grew jaded and despondent. Flirtations were not to be thought of with any members of the existing household. Firstly, because the doughty Jean was to be expected at any moment, and untoward consequences might ensue; secondly, because the young lady knew, for certain, that many of the domestics were creatures of the abbé, if not all of them. There are few feelings less pleasant than a conviction that you are surrounded by spies, that you are always under observation like a struggling insect under a microscope. Common rough malefactors in gaol suffer more from unsleeping surveillance than would be supposed possible in persons with low-strung nerves. The weather grew too cold for sitting-out, even if wrapped in furs, and Toinon had much ado to coax her wan mistress to take the air at all, for was not the favourite pleasaunce, called the moat-garden, redolent of distracting memories; did not each flower-bed recall some prank of the absent ones, each bush re-echo with the laughter, which was to be heard no more at Lorge? It was even disagreeable to gaze from the balconies of the long saloon, for the Loire flowed on in silent placidity, its bosom no longer ruffled by the eccentric movements of the wherry propelled by infant hands. The wherry swung in the tide, a useless bit of lumber, for no one dreamed of using it, of unknotting its rusty chain. Gabrielle sat day by day in a low _causeuse_, intent on some embroidery like a fading Penelope, who works on and weaves, a dull machine, though she has learned that Ulysses is no more. The earth is steady underfoot, the sky above; the soul yet beats against its chain--how long? Some kind of mechanical occupation is imperative to keep overwrought nerves from twanging--to maintain on the lips the bit of silence, and hold back the wailing of despair. When all illusions are gone--every one--when, search as carefully as we will, there is no grain of comfort left to make existence bearable, we long for death in any hideous shape, well knowing that if the Pilgrim came, we should involuntarily shrink from him. Love of life, for the sake of living, is a phenomenon which orientals do not share with the white races, happily for them; whether they go or stay is a matter of indifference, from which they may thank their faith, since death means to them but a change of envelope, a single stage upon a journey.