Months passed. Charville had its own events to talk about. Madame, the wife of the Prefet, died, there was a change of regiments, a fresh company took the theatre. These were the topics about which people spoke, keeping their own little subjects of interest under the surface, as people do. Therese, who had no one with whom to converse after this fashion, became in time grateful for the hard work which took her thoughts out of the groove along which they travelled incessantly. It seemed as if the key had been put into her hands which opens the treasure-house of life. Before this she had been groping with the wrong instrument. The key lies before us all, only we are so dull and so blind that unless something forces it upon us we often take no notice, or merely play with it. Not our own, but another's. When we have learned that lesson, the treasure doors fly open. There had been no news of Fabien, and she was often very sad, very desponding, but never with such a sense of dreariness as before. There seemed something to live for besides that bright hope of happiness which used almost to mock her by its very brilliancy. Her buoyancy came back; she could sing over her work, laugh sometimes at madame's tyranny. Above all, the teaching lost some of its horrors. Octavie was as disagreeable as ever, but Adolphe was more teachable, more affectionate; Therese began to feel a little fond of him at the bottom of her heart. She used to tell him stories about her life in Rouen, or legends of the Brittany which was her mother's province. Adolphe was an insatiable listener. "Encore, encore," he would cry peremptorily, and then Therese had to begin all over again. Occasionally he would reward her with a story of his own. "Ecoute toi," was always the beginning, and then perhaps, "il y avait un geant." But the giant never accomplished much beyond the mere fact of existence.