young and
beautiful girl to the bank. With nothing on her but her night-dress, she
seemed to have run straight from her bed to the pond. The gossips of the
neighbourhood will never cease chattering over this incident and the
shock which it gave the priest; and, though there is no other pond in
the village, the poor girl will be everlastingly reproached with
choosing "God's Pool" for her attempt at suicide.

Is it not enough for me to know that she is out of place amid her coarse
surroundings and that she is not happy there?

5

I have been expecting her for a week. I am wishing with all my might
that she may come; I am drawing her with my eyes, with my smile, with my
manner and with my will. But I say nothing to her. She must be able to
take to herself all the credit of this first act of independence.
Moreover, it will give me the evidence which I require of some sympathy
between us.

Outwardly, I am following a strict principle. Really, I am yielding to a
fear: am I not about to perform a dangerous and rather mad action, in
once more taking upon myself the responsibility of another's life?

We are not always unaware of the follies which we are about to commit;
but it is natural that the immediate joys should eclipse the probable
misfortunes and help us to go boldly forward.

Besides, the inquisitive know no weariness. They go with outstretched
hand to the assistance of events, heedless of increasing the chances of
suffering, because they always find, in return, something to occupy
their restlessness. Let us not blame them. In contemplating the good or
evil outcome of an action, we behold but its main lines; we do not see
the thousand little broken strokes that go to compose it. They make the
total of our days; and they have to be lived.

CHAPTER IV

1

A broad avenue of beeches stretches in front of our garden; and at the
far end is the open country. Here we have placed a seat which looks out
over space. Nothing but fields and fields, as far as the eye can reach;
nothing but land and sky. We love the security of this elemental
landscape, where the alternations of light succeed one another
inexorably. The noontides are fierce and dazzling. The soft, opalescent
mornings are fragrant with love and pleasure. But, most of all, the
sunsets attract us by their unwearied variety, sometimes sober and
tender, ever fainter and more ethereal, sometimes blood-red, monstrous
and barbaric.

The one which I wa