ic attraction for
madame. She is over it or near it half the time. If I go out in the
early morning to gather grapes for dinner, there she is before me,
pacing up and down the paths converging to that spot, and gazing with
eager eyes at that simple stone, as if by the force of her will she
would extract its secret and make it tell her what she evidently burns
to know. If I want flowers for the parlor mantel, and hurry into the
garden during the heat of the day, there is madame with a huge hat on
her head, plucking asters or pulling down apples from the low-hanging
branches of the trees. It is the same at nightfall. Suspicious, always
suspicious now, I frequently stop, in passing through the upper western
hall, to take a peep from the one window that overlooks this part of the
garden. I invariably see her there; and remembering that her daughter is
ill, remembering that in my hearing she promised that daughter that she
would not leave her again, I feel impelled at times to remind her of the
fact, and see what reply will follow. But I know. She will say that she
is not well herself; that the breeze from the river does her good; that
she loves nature, and sleeps better after a ramble under the stars. I
cannot disconcert her--not for long--and I cannot compete with her in
volubility and conversational address, so I will continue to play a
discreet part and wait.

* * * * *

OCTOBER 17, 1791.

Madame has become bolder, or her curiosity more impatient. Hitherto she
has been content with haunting the garden, and walking over and about
that one place in it which possesses peculiar interest for her and me.
But this evening, when she thought no one was looking, when after a
hurried survey of the house and grounds she failed to detect my sharp
eyes behind the curtain of the upper window, she threw aside discretion,
knelt down on the sod of that grave, and pushed aside the grass that
grows about the stone, doubtless to see if there was any marks or
inscription upon it. There are none, but I determined she should not be
sure of this, so before she could satisfy herself, I threw up the window
behind which I stood, making so much noise that it alarmed her, and she
hastily rose.

I met her hasty look with a smile which it was too dark for her to see,
and a cheerful good evening which I presume fell with anything but a
cheerful sound upon her ears.

"It is a lovely evening," I cried. "Have yo