On the grass, which looked as if someone had rested there, lay a woman's glove and two whips. Julien and Gilberte had evidently sat down and then gone farther on, leaving the horses tied to the tree. Jeanne wondered what they could be doing, and getting off her horse, she leant against the trunk of a tree and waited for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. She stood quite motionless, and two little birds flew down onto the grass close by her. One of them hopped round the other, fluttering his outstretched wings, and chirping and nodding his little head; all at once they coupled. Jeanne watched them, as surprised as if she had never known of such a thing before; then she thought: "Oh, of course! It is springtime." Then came another thought--a suspicion. She looked again at the glove, the whips and the two horses standing riderless; then she sprang on her horse with an intense longing to leave this place. She started back to Les Peuples at a gallop. Her brain was busy reasoning, connecting different incidents and thinking it all out. How was it that she had never noticed anything, had never guessed this before? How was it that Julien's frequent absence from home, his renewed attention to his toilet, his better temper had told her nothing? Now she understood Gilberte's nervous irritability, her exaggerated affection for herself and the bliss in which she had appeared to be living lately, and which had so pleased the comte. She pulled up her horse for she wanted to think calmly, and the quick movement confused her ideas. After the first shock she became almost indifferent; she felt neither jealousy nor hatred, only contempt. She did not think about Julien at all, for nothing that he could do would have astonished her, but the twofold treachery of the comtesse, who had deceived her friend as well as her husband, hurt her deeply. So everyone was treacherous, and untrue and faithless! Her eyes filled with tears, for sometimes it is as bitter to see an illusion destroyed as to witness the death of a friend. She resolved to say nothing more about her discovery. Her heart would be dead to everyone but Paul and her parents, but she would bear a smiling face. When she reached home she caught up her son in her arms, carried him to her room and pressed her lips to his face again and again, and for a whole hour she played with and caressed him. Julien came in to dinner in a very good temper and full of plans for his wife's pleasure. "Won't your father and mother come and stay with us this year?" he said. Jeanne almost forgave him his infidelity, so grateful was she to him for making this proposal. She longed to see the two people she loved best after Paul, and she passed the whole evening in writing to them, and urging them to come as soon as possible.