t, or a peasant and his wife could be seen
coming from the distance, growing larger and larger as they approached
the house and then diminishing again when they had passed it, till they
looked like two insects at the end of the long white line which
stretched as far as the eye could reach, rising and falling with the
undulation of the earth. When the grass again sprang up a little girl
passed the gate every morning with two thin cows which browsed along the
side of the road, and in the evening she returned, taking, as in the
morning, one step every ten minutes as she followed the animals.

Every night Jeanne dreamt that she was again at Les Peuples. She thought
she was there with her father and mother and Aunt Lison as in the old
times. Again she accomplished the old, forgotten duties and supported
Madame Adelaide as she walked in her avenue; and each time she awoke she
burst into tears.

Paul was continually in her thoughts and she wondered what he was doing,
if he were well and if he ever thought of her. She revolved all these
painful thoughts in her mind as she walked along the low-lying roads
between the farms, and what was more torture to her than anything else
was the fierce jealousy of the woman who had deprived her of her son. It
was this hatred alone which restrained her from taking any steps towards
finding Paul and trying to see him. She could imagine her son's mistress
confronting her at the door and asking, "What is your business here,
madame?" and her self-respect would not permit her to run the risk of
such an encounter. In the haughty pride of a chaste and spotless woman,
who had never stooped to listen to temptation, she became still more
bitter against the base and cowardly actions to which sensual love will
drive a man who is not strong enough to throw off its degrading chains.
The whole of humanity seemed to her unclean as she thought of the
obscene secrets of the senses, of the caresses which debase as they are
given and received, and of all the mysteries which surround the
attraction of the sexes.

Another spring and summer passed away, and when the autumn came again
with its rainy days, its dull, gray skies, its heavy clouds, Jeanne felt
so weary of the life she was leading that she determined to make a
supreme attempt to regain possession of her Poulet. Surely the young
man's passion must have cooled by this time, and she wrote him a
touching, pitiful letter:

"My Dear Child--I am coming