ark, juniper-berries,
beech-nuts, tangled roots, hills raised by burrowing insects, ravines
formed by the draining off of the rains. Ants and beetles bustled along
them, pressing up hill and down to some mysterious goal. Above them a
cunning red spider was tying a blade of grass to an orchid leaf, the
pillars it had chosen for its future web; and when the wind shook the
leaves and the sun pierced through to this spot, I saw the delicate roof
already mapped out.

I do not know how long my contemplation lasted. The woods were still.
Save for a swarm of gnats which hummed in a minor key around the
sleeping Lampron, nothing stirred, not a leaf even. All nature was
silent as it drank in the full sunshine.

A murmur of distant voices stole on my ear. I rose, and crept through
the birches and hazels to the edge of the glade.

At the top of the slope, on the green margin of the glade, shaded by the
tall trees, two pedestrians were slowly advancing. At the distance they
still were I could distinguish very little except that the man wore a
frock-coat, and that the girl was dressed in gray, and was young, to
judge by the suppleness of her walk. Nevertheless I felt at once that it
was she!

I hid at they came near, and saw her pass on her father's arm, chatting
in low tones, full of joy to have escaped from the Rue de l'Universite.
She was looking before her with wide-open eyes. M. Charnot kept his
eyes on his daughter, more interested in her than in all the wealth of
spring. He kept well to the right of the path as the sun ate away the
edge of the shadows; and asked, from time to time:

"Are you tired?"

"Oh, no!"

"As soon as you are tired, my dear, we will sit down. I am not walking
too fast?"

She answered "No" again, and laughed, and they went on.

Soon they left the avenue and were lost in a green alley. Then a sudden
twilight seemed to have closed down on me, an infinite sadness swelled
in my heart. I closed my eyes, and--God forgive my weakness, but the
tears came.

"Hallo! What part do you intend me to play in all this?" said Lampron
behind me.

"'What part'?"

"Yes. It's an odd notion to invite me to your trysting-place."

"Trysting-place? I haven't one."

"You mean to tell me, perhaps, that you came here by chance?"

"Certainly."

"And chanced upon the very moment and the spot where she was passing?"

"Do you want a proof? That young lady is Mademoiselle Charnot."

"Well?"

"Well, I never have