tly, till the meal had been finished, when, turning
towards the landlady I said: "See here, Madame Lecacheur, it will not be
long now before I shall have to take my leave of you."

The good woman, at once surprised and troubled, replied in a quivering
voice: "My dear sir, what is it I have just heard you say? you are going
to leave us, after I have become so much accustomed to you?"

I regarded Miss Harriet from the corner of my eye. Her countenance did
not change in the least; but the under-servant came towards me with eyes
wide open. She was a fat girl, of about eighteen years of age, rosy,
fresh, as strong as a horse, yet possessing the rare attribute in one in
her position--she was very neat and clean. I had embraced her at odd
times, in out of the way corners, in the manner of a mountain guide,
nothing more.

The dinner being at length over, I went to smoke my pipe under the apple
trees, walking up and down at my ease, from one end of the court to the
other. All the reflections which I had made during the day, the strange
discovery of the morning, that grotesque love and passionate attachment
for me, the recollections which that revelation had suddenly called up,
recollections at once charming and perplexing, perhaps, also, that look
which the servant had cast on me at the announcement of my
departure--all these things, mixed up and combined, put me now in a
jolly humor of body, recalling the tickling sensation of kisses on the
lips, and in the veins, something which urged me on to commit some
folly.

Night having come on, casting its dark shadows under the trees, I
descried Celeste, who had gone to shut the hen coops, at the other end
of the enclosure. I darted towards her, running so noiselessly that she
heard nothing, and as she got up from closing the small traps by which
the chickens got in and out, I clasped her in my arms and rained on her
coarse, fat face a shower of kisses. She made a struggle, laughing all
the same, as she was accustomed to do in such circumstances. Wherefore
did I suddenly loose my grip of her? Why did I at once experience a
shock? What was it that I heard behind me?

It was Miss Harriet who had come upon us, who had seen us, and who stood
in front of us, as motionless as a specter. Then she disappeared in the
darkness.

I was ashamed, embarrassed, more desperate at having been surprised by
her than if she had caught me committing some criminal act.

I slept badly that night; I w