s broad, low parapet, as on some rustic bench, and thence
she overlooked the whole plain as far as the houses of Janville, before
which passed the railway line. And from afar she could see her husband
approaching along the road which wound between the cornfields.

That evening she took her usual seat under the broad velvety sky
spangled with gold. And with a movement which bespoke her solicitude
she turned towards the bright little light shining on the verge of the
sombre woods, a light telling of the quietude of the room in which
it burnt, the servant's tranquil vigil, and the happy slumber of the
children in the adjoining chamber. Then Marianne let her gaze wander
all around her, over the great estate of Chantebled, belonging to the
Seguins. The dilapidated pavilion stood at the extreme edge of the
woods whose copses, intersected by patches of heath, spread over a lofty
plateau to the distant farms of Mareuil and Lillebonne. But that was not
all, for to the west of the plateau lay more than two hundred and fifty
acres of land, a marshy expanse where pools stagnated amid brushwood,
vast uncultivated tracts, where one went duck-shooting in winter. And
there was yet a third part of the estate, acres upon acres of equally
sterile soil, all sand and gravel, descending in a gentle slope to the
embankment of the railway line. It was indeed a stretch of country lost
to culture, where the few good patches of loam remained unproductive,
inclosed within the waste land. But the spot had all the beauty and
exquisite wildness of solitude, and was one that appealed to healthy
minds fond of seeing nature in freedom. And on that lovely night one
could nowhere have found more perfect and more balmy quiet.

Marianne, who since coming to the district had already threaded the
woodland paths, explored the stretches of brushwood around the meres,
and descended the pebbly slopes, let her eyes travel slowly over the
expanse, divining spots she had visited and was fond of, though the
darkness now prevented her from seeing them. In the depths of the woods
an owl raised its soft, regular cry, while from a pond on the right
ascended a faint croaking of frogs, so far away that it sounded like the
vibration of crystal. And from the other side, the side of Paris, there
came a growing rumble which, little by little, rose above all the other
sounds of the night. She heard it, and at last lent ear to nothing else.
It was the train, for whose familiar r