panse--this wood-yard with its slumbering timber, so stiff
and rigid in the cold. The prisoners, the soldiers, and the mob along
the high road disappeared amid the darkness of the trees. The expanse,
the beams, the piles of planks alone grew pale under the fading light,
assuming a muddy tint that vaguely suggested the bed of a dried-up
torrent. The sawyers' trestles, rearing their meagre framework in a
corner, seemed to form gallows, or the uprights of a guillotine. And
there was no living soul there excepting three gipsies who showed their
frightened faces at the door of their van--an old man and woman, and a
big girl with woolly hair, whose eyes gleamed like those of a wolf.

Before reaching the secluded path, Silvere looked round him. He
bethought himself of a far away Sunday when he had crossed the wood-yard
in the bright moonlight. How calm and soft it had been!--how slowly had
the pale rays passed over the beams! Supreme silence had fallen from the
frozen sky. And amidst this silence, the woolly-haired gipsy girl had
sung in a low key and an unknown tongue. Then Silvere remembered that
the seemingly far-off Sunday was only a week old. But a week ago he had
come to bid Miette farewell! How long past it seemed! He felt as though
he had not set foot in the wood-yard for years. But when he reached the
narrow path his heart failed him. He recognised the odour of the grass,
the shadows of the planks, the holes in the wall. A woeful voice rose
from all those things. The path stretched out sad and lonely; it seemed
longer to him than usual, and he felt a cold wind blowing down it. The
spot had aged cruelly. He saw that the wall was moss-eaten, that the
verdant carpet was dried up by frost, that the piles of timber had been
rotted by rain. It was perfect devastation. The yellow twilight fell
like fine dust upon the ruins of all that had been most dear to him. He
was obliged to close his eyes that he might again behold the lane green,
and live his happy hours afresh. It was warm weather; and he was
racing with Miette in the balmy air. Then the cruel December rains fell
unceasingly, yet they still came there, sheltering themselves beneath
the planks and listening with rapture to the heavy plashing of the
shower. His whole life--all his happiness--passed before him like a
flash of lightning. Miette was climbing over the wall, running to
him, shaking with sonorous laughter. She was there; he could see her,
gleaming white throug