e when her
parents went away, for now all her hopes and thoughts were centered on
her son.

* * * * *

IX

Now Jeanne was quite well again she thought she would like to return the
Fourville's visit, and also to call on the Couteliers. Julien had just
bought another carriage at a sale, a phaeton. It only needed one horse,
so they could go out twice a month, now, instead of once, and they used
it for the first time one bright December morning.

After driving for two hours across the Normandy plains they began to go
down to a little valley, whose sloping sides were covered with trees,
while the level ground at the bottom was cultivated. The ploughed fields
were followed by meadows, the meadows by a fen covered with tall reeds,
which waved in the wind like yellow ribbons, and then the road took a
sharp turn and the Chateau de la Vrillette came in sight. It was built
between a wooded slope on the one side and a large lake on the other,
the water stretching from the chateau wall to the tall fir-trees which
covered the opposite acclivity.

The carriage had to pass over an old draw-bridge and under a vast Louis
XIII. archway before it drew up in front of a handsome building of the
same period as the archway, with brick frames round the windows and
slated turrets. Julien pointed out all the different beauties of the
mansion to Jeanne as if he were thoroughly acquainted with every nook
and corner of it.

"Isn't it a superb place?" he exclaimed. "Just look at that archway! On
the other side of the house, which looks on to the lake, there is a
magnificent flight of steps leading right down to the water. Four boats
are moored at the bottom of the steps, two for the comte and two for the
comtesse. The lake ends down there, on the right, where you can see that
row of poplars, and there the river, which runs to Fecamp, rises. The
place abounds in wild-fowl, and the comte passes all his time shooting.
Ah! it is indeed a lordly residence."

The hall door opened and the fair-haired comtesse came to meet her
visitors with a smile on her face. She wore a trailing dress like a
chatelaine of the middle ages, and, exactly suited to the place in which
she lived, she looked like some beautiful Lady of the Lake.

Four out of the eight drawing-room windows looked on to the lake, and
the water looked dull and dismal, overshadowed as it was by the gloomy
fir-trees which covered the opposite slope.

The comt