asy? Do you remember, my father," he resumed, after a pause, turning
to the cure, "do you remember how lovely Marie looked on our wedding-day?
Do you remember her dazzling complexion and the innocent candour of her
expression?--the sure token of the most truthful and purest of minds!
That is why I love her so much now; we do not now sigh for one another,
but the second love is stronger than the first, for it is founded on
recollection, and is tranquil and confident in friendship . . . . It
is strange that they have not returned; something must have happened! If
they do not return this evening, and I do not now think it possible, I
shall go to Paris myself to-morrow."

"I think;" said the other priest, "that at twenty you must indeed have
been excitable, a veritable tinder-box, to have retained so much energy!
Come, monsieur, try to calm yourself and have patience: you yourself
admit it can only be a few hours' delay."

"But my son accompanied his mother, and he is our only one, and so
delicate! He alone remains of our three children, and you do not realise
how the affection of parents who feel age approaching is concentrated on
an only child! If I lost Edouard I should die!"

"I suppose, then, as you let him go, his presence at Paris was
necessary?"

"No; his mother went to obtain a loan which is needed for the
improvements required on the estate."

"Why, then, did you let him go?"

"I would willingly have kept him here, but his mother wished to take him.
A separation is as trying to her as to me, and we all but quarrelled over
it. I gave way."

"There was one way of satisfying all three--you might have gone also."

"Yes, but Monsieur le cure will tell you that a fortnight ago I was
chained to my arm-chair, swearing under my breath like a pagan, and
cursing the follies of my youth!--Forgive me, my father; I mean that I
had the gout, and I forgot that I am not the only sufferer, and that it
racks the old age of the philosopher quite as much as that of the
courtier."

The fresh wind which often rises just at sunset was already rustling in
the leaves; long shadows darkened the course of the Yonne and stretched
across the plain; the water, slightly troubled, reflected a confused
outline of its banks and the clouded blue of the sky. The three
gentlemen stopped at the end of the terrace and gazed into the already
fading distance. A black spot, which they had just observed in the
middle of the river, caugh