placing some one between them.

Then he wrote to her.

He carried his notes himself to a hollow in a rock near a clear spring
called "The Phantom," which was in the outskirts of the park, sheltered
by a thatched roof. Sidonie thought that a charming episode. In the
evening she must invent some story, a pretext of some sort for going
to "The Phantom" alone. The shadow of the trees across the path, the
mystery of the night, the rapid walk, the excitement, made her heart
beat deliciously. She would find the letter saturated with dew, with the
intense cold of the spring, and so white in the moonlight that she would
hide it quickly for fear of being surprised.

And then, when she was alone, what joy to open it, to decipher those
magic characters, those words of love which swam before her eyes,
surrounded by dazzling blue and yellow circles, as if she were reading
her letter in the bright sunlight.

"I love you! Love me!" wrote Georges in every conceivable phrase.

At first she did not reply; but when she felt that he was fairly caught,
entirely in her power, she declared herself concisely:

"I never will love any one but my husband."

Ah! she was a true woman already, was little Chebe.

CHAPTER V. HOW LITTLE CHEBE'S STORY ENDED

Meanwhile September arrived. The hunting season brought together a large,
noisy, vulgar party at the chateau. There were long dinners at which the
wealthy bourgeois lingered slothfully and wearily, prone to fall asleep
like peasants. They went in carriages to meet the returning hunters in
the cool air of the autumn evening. The mist arose from the fields, from
which the crops had been gathered; and while the frightened game flew
along the stubble with plaintive cries, the darkness seemed to emerge
from the forests whose dark masses increased in size, spreading out over
the fields.

The carriage lamps were lighted, the hoods raised, and they drove
quickly homeward with the fresh air blowing in their faces. The
dining-hall, brilliantly illuminated, was filled with gayety and
laughter.

Claire Fromont, embarrassed by the vulgarity of those about her,
hardly spoke at all. Sidonie was at her brightest. The drive had given
animation to her pale complexion and Parisian eyes. She knew how to
laugh, understood a little too much, perhaps, and seemed to the male
guests the only woman in the party. Her success completed Georges's
intoxication; but as his advances became more pronounced, she s