And so we began our journey; sadly, under dripping trees and a leaden sky. The country we had to traverse was the same I had trodden on the last day of my march southwards, but the passage of a month had changed the face of everything. Green dells, where springs welling out of the chalk had once made of the leafy bottom a fairies’ home, strewn with delicate ferns and hung with mosses, were now swamps into which our horses sank to the fetlock. Sunny brews, whence I had viewed the champaign and traced my forward path, had become bare, wind-swept ridges. The beech woods that had glowed with ruddy light were naked now; mere black trunks and rigid arms pointing to heaven. An earthy smell filled the air; a hundred paces away a wall of mist closed the view. We plodded on sadly up hill and down hill, now fording brooks, already stained with flood-water, now crossing barren heaths. But up hill or down hill, whatever the outlook, I was never permitted to forget that I was the jailor, the ogre, the villain; that I, riding behind in my loneliness, was the blight on all--the death-spot. True, I was behind the others--I escaped their eyes. But there was not a line of Mademoiselle’s figure that did not speak scorn to me; not a turn of head that did not seem to say, ‘Oh, God, that such a thing should breathe.’ I had only speech with her once during the day, and that was on the last ridge before we went down into the valley to climb up again to Auch. The rain had ceased; the sun, near its setting, shone faintly; for a few moments we stood on the brow and looked southwards while we breathed the horses. The mist lay like a pall on the country we had traversed; but beyond and above it, gleaming pearl-like in the level rays, the line of the mountains stood up like a land of enchantment, soft, radiant, wonderful!--or like one of those castles on the Hill of Glass of which the old romances tell us. I forgot for an instant how we were placed, and I cried to my neighbour that it was the fairest pageant I had ever seen. She--it was Mademoiselle, and she had taken off her mask--cast one look at me in answer; only one, but it conveyed disgust and loathing so unspeakable that scorn beside them would have been a gift. I reined in my horse as if she had struck me, and felt myself go first hot and then cold under her eyes. Then she looked another way.