no definite
malady, the doctor forbade him to continue his journey yet, ordering
complete rest. I spent my days with him, and the little maid would come
in incessantly, bringing either my dinner or some herb tea.

"I teased her a little, which seemed to amuse her, but we did not chat,
of course, as we could not understand each other.

"But one night, after I had stayed quite late with my friend and was
going back to my room, I passed the girl, who was going to her room. It
was just opposite my open door, and, without reflection, and more for fun
than anything else, I abruptly seized her round the waist, and before she
recovered from her astonishment I had thrown her down and locked her in
my room. She looked at me, amazed, excited, terrified, not daring to cry
out for fear of a scandal and of being probably driven out, first by her
employers and then, perhaps, by her father.

"I did it as a joke at first. She defended herself bravely, and at the
first chance she ran to the door, drew back the bolt and fled.

"I scarcely saw her for several days. She would not let me come near her.
But when my friend was cured and we were to get out on our travels again
I saw her coming into my room about midnight the night before our
departure, just after I had retired.

"She threw herself into my arms and embraced me passionately, giving me
all the assurances of tenderness and despair that a woman can give when
she does not know a word of our language.

"A week later I had forgotten this adventure, so common and frequent when
one is travelling, the inn servants being generally destined to amuse
travellers in this way.

"I was thirty before I thought of it again, or returned to Pont Labbe.

"But in 1876 I revisited it by chance during a trip into Brittany, which
I made in order to look up some data for a book and to become permeated
with the atmosphere of the different places.

"Nothing seemed changed. The chateau still laved its gray wall in the
pond outside the little town; the inn was the same, though it had been
repaired, renovated and looked more modern. As I entered it I was
received by two young Breton girls of eighteen, fresh and pretty, bound
up in their tight cloth bodices, with their silver caps and wide
embroidered bands on their ears.

"It was about six o'clock in the evening. I sat down to dinner, and as
the host was assiduous in waiting on me himself, fate, no doubt, impelled
me to say:

"'Did you know the fo