young Denis Lecoq (Julien's son) came, with his cart, to
take way the first lot of things, and Rosalie went off with him to look
after the unloading, and to see that the furniture was put into the
right rooms.

When she was alone Jeanne began to visit every room in the chateau, and
to kiss in a transport of passionate sorrow and regret everything that
she was forced to leave behind her--the big white birds in the
drawing-room tapestry, the old candlesticks, anything and everything
that came in her way. She went from room to room, half mad with grief,
and the tears streaming from her eyes, and, when she had gone all over
the house, she went out to "say good-bye" to the sea. It was the end of
September, and the dull yellowish waves stretched away as far as the eye
could reach, under the lowering gray sky which hung over the world. For
a long, long while, Jeanne stood on the cliff, her thoughts running on
all her sorrows and troubles, and it was not till night drew on that she
went indoors. In that day she had gone through as much suffering as she
had ever passed through in her greatest griefs.

Rosalie had returned enchanted with the new house, "which was much
livelier than this big barn of a place that was not even on a main
road," but her mistress wept the whole evening.

Now they knew the chateau was sold the farmers showed Jeanne barely the
respect that was due to her, and, though they hardly knew why, among
themselves they always spoke of her as "that lunatic." Perhaps, with
their brute-like instinct, they perceived her unhealthy and increasing
sentimentality, her morbid reveries, and the disordered and pitiful
state of her mind which so much sorrow and affliction had unhinged.

Happening to go through the stables the day before she was to leave Les
Peuples, Jeanne came upon Massacre, whose existence she had entirely
forgotten. Long past the age at which dogs generally die, he had become
blind and paralyzed, and dragged out his life on a bed of straw, whither
Ludivine, who never forgot him, brought him his food. Jeanne took him up
in her arms, kissed him and carried him into the house; he could hardly
creep along, his legs were so stiff, and he barked like a child's wooden
toy-dog.

At length the last day dawned. Jeanne had passed the night in Julien's
old room, as all the furniture had been moved out of hers, and when she
rose she felt as tired and exhausted as if she had just been running a
long distance.

I