ins, where he married and settled, and cared
almost lovingly for the people, who were to him like a large family.
During the whole of Pierrette's illness he was careful not to speak of
her. His reluctance to answer the questions of those who asked about
her was so evident that persons soon ceased to put them. Pierrette was
to him, what indeed she truly was, a poem, mysterious, profound, vast
in suffering, such as doctors find at times in their terrible
experience. He felt an admiration for this delicate young creature
which he would not share with any one.

This feeling of the physician for his patient was, however,
unconsciously communicated (like all true feelings) to Monsieur and
Madame Auffray, whose house became, so long as Pierrette was in it,
quiet and silent. The children, who had formerly played so joyously
with her, agreed among themselves with the loving grace of childhood
to be neither noisy nor troublesome. They made it a point of honor to
be good because Pierrette was ill. Monsieur Auffray's house was in the
Upper town, beneath the ruins of the Chateau, and it was built upon a
sort of terrace formed by the overthrow of the old ramparts. The
occupants could have a view of the valley from the little fruit-garden
enclosed by walls which overlooked the town. The roofs of the other
houses came to about the level of the lower wall of this garden. Along
the terrace ran a path, by which Monsieur Auffray's study could be
entered through a glass door; at the other end of the path was an
arbor of grape vines and a fig-tree, beneath which stood a round
table, a bench and some chairs, painted green. Pierrette's bedroom was
above the study of her new guardian. Madame Lorrain slept in a cot
beside her grandchild. From her window Pierrette could see the whole
of the glorious valley of Provins, which she hardly knew, so seldom
had she left that dreadful house of the Rogrons. When the weather was
fine she loved to drag herself, resting on her grandmother's arm, to
the vine-clad arbor. Brigaut, unable to work, came three times a day
to see his little friend; he was gnawed by a grief which made him
indifferent to life. He lay in wait like a dog for Monsieur Martener,
and followed him when he left the house. The old grandmother, drunk
with grief, had the courage to conceal her despair; she showed her
darling the smiling face she formerly wore at Pen-Hoel. In her desire
to produce that illusion in the girl's mind, she made her