people invited for the
shooting, and did she visit much with the other ladies in the
neighborhood?

And they drank with their elbows resting on the table in front of me,
uttered her praises in a voice as monotonous as a spinning wheel, lost
themselves in endless, senseless chatter which made me yawn in spite of
myself, and told me her girlish tricks which certainly did not disclose
what was haunting me, the traces of that first love, that perilous
flirtation, that foolish escapade in which Elaine might have been
seduced.

Old and young men and women, spoke of her with something like devotion,
and all said how kind and charitable she was, and as merry as a bird on
a bright day; they said she pitied their wretchedness and their
troubles, and was still the young girl in spite of her long dresses, and
fearing nothing, while even the animals loved her.

She was almost always alone, and was never troubled with any companions;
she seemed to shun the house, hide herself in the park when the bell
announced some unexpected visits, and when one of her aunts, Madame de
Pleissac, said to her one day:

"Do you think that you will ever find a husband with your stand-offish
manners?"

She replied with a burst of laughter:

"Oh! Very well, then, Auntie, I shall do without one!"

She had never given a hand to spiteful chatter or to slander, and had
not flirted with the best looking young man in the neighborhood, any
more than she had with the officers who stayed at the _chateau_ during
the maneuver, or the neighbors, who came to see her parents. And some of
them even old men, whom years of work had bent like vine-stalks and had
tanned like the leather bottles which are used by caravans in the East,
used to say with tears in their dim eyes:

"Ah! When you married our young lady, we all said that there would not
be a happier man in the whole world than you!"

Ought I to have believed them? Were they not simple, frank souls, who
were ignorant of wiles and of lies, who had no interest in deceiving me,
who had lived near Elaine while she was growing up and becoming a woman,
and who had been familiar with her?

Could I be the only one who doubted Elaine, the only one who accused her
and suspected her, I who loved her so madly, I, whose only hope, only
desire, only happiness she was? May heaven guide me on this bad road on
which I have lost my way, where I am calling for help and where my
misery is increasing every day, and grant m