rrows. I was young and I loved pleasure; that daily association with
a woman older than I, who suffered and languished, that face, more and
more serious, which was always before me, all this repelled my youth and
aroused within me bitter regrets for the liberty I had lost.

One night we were passing through the forest in the beautiful light of
the moon, and both experienced a profound melancholy. Brigitte looked
at me in pity. We sat down on a rock near a wild gorge and passed two
entire hours there; her half-veiled eyes plunged into my soul, crossing
a glance from mine; then wandered to nature, to the heavens and the
valley.

"Ah! my dear child," she said, "how I pity you! You do not love me."

To reach that rock we had to travel two leagues; two more in returning
makes four. Brigitte was afraid of neither fatigue nor darkness. We
set out at eleven at night, expecting to reach home some time in the
morning. When we went on long tramps she always dressed in a blue blouse
and the apparel of a man, saying that skirts were not made for bushes.
She walked before me in the sand with a firm step and such a charming
mingling of feminine delicacy and childlike innocence, that I stopped
every few moments to look at her. It seemed that, once started, she had
to accomplish a difficult but sacred task; she walked in front like a
soldier, her arms swinging, her voice ringing through the woods in song;
suddenly she would turn, come to me and kiss me. This was on the
outward journey; on the return she leaned on my arm; then more songs,
confidences, tender avowals in low tones, although we were alone, two
leagues from anywhere. I do not recall a single word spoken on the
return that was not of love or friendship.

Another night we struck out through the woods, leaving the road which
led to the rock. Brigitte was tramping along so stoutly and her little
velvet cap on her light hair made her look so much like a resolute
youth, that I forgot she was a woman when there were no obstacles in
our path. More than once she was obliged to call me to her aid when I,
without thinking of her, had pushed on ahead. I can not describe the
effect produced on me in the clear night air, in the midst of the
forest, by that voice of hers, half-joyous and half-plaintive, coming,
as it were, from that little schoolboy body wedged in between roots and
trunks of trees, unable to advance. I took her in my arms.

"Come, Madame," I cried, laughing, "you are a