ous depths, in order to flee thither, to
escape and hide from all eyes, and from time to time he uttered a fresh
scream, a prolonged and shrill "tuituit." I took this to be a nervous
affection.

The young woman, suddenly turning towards me: and changing her tone with
singular rapidity, said:

"If monsieur will kindly allow us, we will accompany him on the road, so
as not to lose our way again, and be obliged, possibly, to sleep in the
wood."

I bowed. She took my arm and began to talk about a thousand things
--about herself, her life, her family, her business. They were
glovers in the Rue, Saint-Lazare.

Her husband walked beside her, casting wild glances into the thick wood
and screaming "tuituit" every few moments.

At last I inquired:

"Why do you scream like that?"

"I have lost my poor dog," he replied in a tone of discouragement and
despair.

"How is that--you have lost your dog?"

"Yes. He was just a year old. He had never been outside the shop. I
wanted to take him to have a run in the woods. He had never seen the
grass nor the leaves and he was almost wild. He began to run about and
bark and he disappeared in the wood. I must also add that he was greatly
afraid of the train. That may have driven him mad. I kept on calling him,
but he has not come back. He will die of hunger in there."

Without turning towards her husband, the young woman said:

"If you had left his chain on, it would not have happened. When people
are as stupid as you are they do not keep a dog."

"But, my dear, it was you--" he murmured timidly.

She stopped short, and looking into his eyes as if she were going to tear
them out, she began again to cast in his face innumerable reproaches.

It was growing dark. The cloud of vapor that covers the country at dusk
was slowly rising and there was a poetry in the air, induced by the
peculiar and enchanting freshness of the atmosphere that one feels in the
woods at nightfall.

Suddenly the young man stopped, and feeling his body feverishly,
exclaimed:

"Oh, I think that I--"

She looked at him.

"Well, what?"

"I did not notice that I had my coat on my arm."

"Well--?"

"I have lost my pocketbook--my money was in it."

She shook with anger and choked with indignation.

"That was all that was lacking. How stupid you are! how stupid you are!
Is it possible that I could have married such an idiot! Well, go and look
for it, and see that you find it. I am going on to Versail