She went to the lodge, but shortened her visit. After her return, the promptness of which I refrained from mentioning, M. Mairieux appeared more than once at the doorstep, wandering about like a soul in pain in the avenue leading up to the chateau. I saw him take up several pieces of work only to abandon them again, passing confusedly from one thing to another. Something was missing in his day: the smile of his daughter, of which I had deprived him. He continually approached the door and then withdrew again. I should have called to him, “She is here, come in,” and instead I contented myself with watching him. My apprenticeship of cruelty was beginning already. Raymonde saw him too, but she did not move. She was waiting for my decision, resolved not to thwart me, and hoping everything from my tenderness. Hating the wrong I did, I none the less accentuated it, and thus, without benefit to myself, I impaired a source of joy. The following day Mme. Mairieux invaded our apartment. She came to make certain on the spot of the happiness of her daughter. Raymonde would have liked to spare me these interminable and noisy visits, which my coldness could not shorten. She knew how impatient I was after them. I was growing tired of the Sleeping Woods; she knew it and mourned for it, and, thinking only of me, blamed herself for it. * * * Almost immediately after our return to the chateau Raymonde’s condition necessitated our giving up our horseback rides. “Let us walk,” she said, “we can see better when we go slowly, and one hears the life in the trees better, too, and the stirring of the little blades of grass. Shan’t we?” In the early morning, especially when the air is keen and freshened by the dew, these slow strolls under the trees should have been exquisite. The leaves were not yet thick enough to keep the sun from filtering through the branches and throwing its gold on the footpaths, but they had already that effect of young verdure that is so delightful. The paths were carpeted with grass, and, since our footfalls made no sound upon it, we were often surprised by almost touching a woodpecker or a chaffinch, who, believing himself master in his own house, flew off in safe and leisurely flight. Oftentimes a hare crossed the avenue in front of us with little bounds.