The spring this year was unusually early at Charville--unusually early and unusually mild. When the young green leaves began to show themselves it seemed impossible not to believe but that Fabien would come with them. While people are young--and, thank Heaven, with a good many youth is not to be measured by years--the spring has a brightness which is irresistible. M. Deshoulieres, too, with more uneasiness than he liked to confess, felt that tidings should have come by this time. He and Therese did not meet very often that winter. Whenever it happened she knew that he was on the watch to prevent her from feeling uneasy or pained by his presence, with a simple straightforward kindness which touched her unutterably. He saw that she was more content, and rejoiced at it. Once or twice he questioned Nannon about her, but the prejudiced old woman would not give him much information. If M. Deshoulieres set himself against M. Fabien's return, she thought, what would become of them? Any thing, even Madame Roulleau's conduct, was preferable to such a misfortune. All this while he had another anxiety in his mind. His own sweet dreams of happiness were at an end, the balcony must remain unfilled, no loving eyes watch through the darkness for his return. Utterly and for ever he had put these visions aside. Therese loved another. He looked it in the face, and accepted his fate bravely. He understood that she was young, solitary, weak perhaps, from these circumstances. He had read her heart so well as to know, moreover, that were he to press his own suit, she, out of this youth and solitariness and weakness, might in time give herself to him. I do not say that he scorned the temptation, but that, with a man of Max Deshoulieres' nature, it could not so much as exist for one moment in his heart. To him such an advantage would have been an impossibility. To love her was to be bound in all noble fashion to guard her and to help her. Guard her and help her he would; yes, help her, although his own heart lay in the path over which she desired to walk. All this Max, who was little given to self-pity, recognised and accepted; what troubled him with anxious thoughts was the doubt whether Fabien was worthy. It seemed to him as if there was something selfish and petty about the manner in which he had broken away from the difficulties surrounding him; something heartless in his allowing so long a period to pass without communication. Those boyish letters tied up and labelled with a trembling hand were proof of the old man's love. Was Fabien more unforgiving than his uncle? Had he ceased to remember his little playmate? Or--was he dead?