ll I wanted to tell you," he said. "Now I'll take you to the du
Roncerets'. Come."

The mother and the son went out. Athanase left his mother at the door of
the house where she intended to pass the evening. He looked long at the
light which came through the shutters; he clung closely to the wall, and
a frenzied joy came over him when he presently heard his mother say, "He
has great independence of heart."

"Poor mother! I have deceived her," he cried, as he made his way to the
Sarthe.

He reached the noble poplar beneath which he had meditated so much for
the last forty days, and where he had placed two heavy stones on which
he now sat down. He contemplated that beautiful nature lighted by the
moon; he reviewed once more the glorious future he had longed for;
he passed through towns that were stirred by his name; he heard the
applauding crowds; he breathed the incense of his fame; he adored that
life long dreamed of; radiant, he sprang to radiant triumphs; he raised
his stature; he evoked his illusions to bid them farewell in a last
Olympic feast. The magic had been potent for a moment; but now it
vanished forever. In that awful hour he clung to the beautiful tree
to which, as to a friend, he had attached himself; then he put the two
stones into the pockets of his overcoat, which he buttoned across his
breast. He had come intentionally without a hat. He now went to the deep
pool he had long selected, and glided into it resolutely, trying to make
as little noise as possible, and, in fact, making scarcely any.

When, at half-past nine o'clock, Madame Granson returned home, her
servant said nothing of Athanase, but gave her a letter. She opened it
and read these few words,--

"My good mother, I have departed; don't be angry with me."

"A pretty trick he has played me!" she thought. "And his linen! and the
money! Well, he will write to me, and then I'll follow him. These
poor children think they are so much cleverer than their fathers and
mothers."

And she went to bed in peace.

During the preceding morning the Sarthe had risen to a height foreseen
by the fisherman. These sudden rises of muddy water brought eels from
their various runlets. It so happened that a fisherman had spread his
net at the very place where poor Athanase had flung himself, believing
that no one would ever find him. About six o'clock in the morning the
man drew in his net, and with it the young body. The few friends of
the poor mother took e