te, who had
married a boatman the year before. She had reserved some beds in the
garret of her cottage, that she might board and lodge one or two poor
invalids at fifteen sous a day. I had engaged one of these rooms, and a
place at the humble board of the good creature. My friend L----, to
whom I had written naming the day of my arrival on the borders of the
lake, had some days previously written to take my lodgings, and warn
Fanchette of my arrival, binding her to secrecy. I had also begged him
to receive, under cover to himself, at Chambery, any letters that might
be addressed to me from Paris. He was to forward them to me by one of
the drivers of the light carts that run continually between the two
towns. I intended, during my stay at Aix, to remain in the daytime
concealed in my little cottage room, or in the surrounding orchards. I
would only, I thought, go out in the evening; I would go up to the
doctor's house by the skirts of the town; I would enter the garden by
the gate which opened on the country, and pass in delightful
intercourse the solitary evening hours. I would bear with pleasure want
and humiliation, which would be compensated a thousand fold by those
hours of love. I thought thus to conciliate the respect I owed to my
poor mother for the sacrifices she had made, with my devotion to the
idol I came to worship.

XCVI.

From a pious superstition of love, I had calculated my steps during my
long pedestrian journey, so as to arrive at the Abbey of Haute-Combe,
on the other side of the Mont du Chat, upon the anniversary of the day
that the miracle of our meeting, and the revelation of our two hearts,
had taken place in the fisherman's inn on the borders of the lake. It
seemed to me that days, like all other mortal things, had their
destiny, and that in the conjunction of the same sun, the same month,
the same date, and in the same spot, I might find something of her I
loved. It would be an augury, at least, of our speedy and lasting
reunion.

XCVII.

From the brink of the almost perpendicular sides of the Mont du Chat
that descend to the lake, I could see on my left the old ruins and the
lengthening shadows of the Abbey, which darkened a vast extent of the
waters. In a few minutes I reached the spot. The sun was sinking behind
the Alps, and the long twilight of autumn enveloped the mountains, the
waves, and the shore. I did not stop at the ruins, and passed rapidly
through the orchar