“She was so timid, so shy,” he said, “that we even determined to send her to boarding school near by, in a convent in the city, in order that contact with companions might accustom her to everyday life. You have no idea of the ceremony that took place before she left. She wished to say good-bye to all the rooms in the house as if they were persons of flesh and blood, and to certain favoured trees and to Stop, the dog, and my horse, and the whole farmyard. She was not absent long. At the end of three days she ran away. She had to climb over a wall, topped with iron spikes. A little of her dress stayed there. Moreover she lost her hat and did not go back to look for it. In this condition she passed through the city somewhat ashamed of her appearance; and ran off at full speed from an old gentleman who began to question her. Once out in the country she was reassured. The city faces did not trouble her any more and those of the peasants gave her confidence, as though she were on familiar ground. So she came back to us on foot, just before nightfall. Have you noticed at the side of the gate a single birch, planted there by chance? It was much smaller then. Raymonde’s first act was to go to this friend and embrace it. From a distance I thought a little pauper girl was coming up the avenue. Stop was already licking her hands, and even her cheeks. And in this beggar I recognised my own daughter.” While he was narrating this memorable Odyssey, M. Mairieux straightened up, he seemed to grow younger, and he smiled. He threw out his leg and walked like a dancing master explaining a step. Then suddenly he fell back into his former attitude, as though ashamed of his spirit. He was recovering from the past a little of its lost happiness. “And how lovely she was at fifteen! Like a ray of golden light, you understand. Curls of changing shades, a fresh complexion of that unsullied white that actually shines, and eyes which it did one good to look at, because you would never imagine that there could be any so pure. There was a little terror in my love for her. She seemed too delicate, too sensitive, and yet I would not have wished her less so. I felt that she would never be happy. I feared for her beforehand. Oh, how right I was!” The last reflection, which escaped involuntarily from his lips, appeared to upset him completely. It coincided too well with the painful allusions of Raymond Cernay not to strike me forcibly. M. Mairieux did not agree with his wife about the conjugal felicity of their daughter. There was a secret here, which a few days later I was destined to learn under tragic circumstances. * * * Bad weather followed the last of the Autumn sunshine. We were prisoners of the rain. A dense fog hid the forest from our sight, and the atmosphere of the chateau became unbearable.