ically. He embraced him in his turn.

"Goodday, my boy. And she is right, mind you; one can be well only out
in the sunshine--like the trees."

Felicite had gone hastily to the house. She returned, crying:

"Charles is not here, then?"

"No," said Clotilde. "We went to see him yesterday. Uncle Macquart has
taken him, and he is to remain for a few days at the Tulettes."

Felicite was in despair. She had come only in the certainty of finding
the boy at Pascal's. What was to be done now? The doctor, with his
tranquil air, proposed to write to Uncle Macquart, who would bring him
back in the morning. But when he learned that Maxime wished positively
to go away again by the nine o'clock train, without remaining over
night, another idea occurred to him. He would send to the livery stable
for a landau, and all four would go to see Charles at Uncle Macquart's.
It would even be a delightful drive. It was not quite three leagues from
Plassans to the Tulettes--an hour to go, and an hour to return, and they
would still have almost two hours to remain there, if they wished to
be back by seven. Martine would get dinner, and Maxime would have time
enough to dine and catch his train.

But Felicite objected, visibly disquieted by this visit to Macquart.

"Oh, no, indeed! If you think I am going down there in this frightful
weather, you are mistaken. It is much simpler to send some one to bring
Charles to us."

Pascal shook his head. Charles was not always to be brought back when
one wished. He was a boy without reason, who sometimes, if the whim
seized him, would gallop off like an untamed animal. And old Mme.
Rougon, overruled and furious at having been unable to make any
preparation, was at last obliged to yield, in the necessity in which she
found herself of leaving the matter to chance.

"Well, be it as you wish, then! Good Heavens, how unfortunately things
have turned out!"

Martine hurried away to order the landau, and before three o'clock had
struck the horses were on the Nice road, descending the declivity which
slopes down to the bridge over the Viorne. Then they turned to the left,
and followed the wooded banks of the river for about two miles. After
this the road entered the gorges of the Seille, a narrow pass between
two giant walls of rock scorched by the ardent rays of the summer
sun. Pine trees pushed their way through the clefts; clumps of trees,
scarcely thicker at the roots than tufts of grass, fringed the cr