hosts, I went to Clochegourde. Monsieur and Madame de Mortsauf had
arranged to drive with me to Tours, whence I was to start the same night
for Paris. During the drive the countess was silent; she pretended
at first to have a headache; then she blushed at the falsehood, and
expiated it by saying that she could not see me go without regret.
The count invited me to stay with them whenever, in the absence of the
Chessels, I might long to see the valley of the Indre once more. We
parted heroically, without apparent tears, but Jacques, who like other
delicate children was quickly touched, began to cry, while Madeleine,
already a woman, pressed her mother's hand.

"Dear little one!" said the countess, kissing Jacques passionately.

When I was alone at Tours after dinner a wild, inexplicable desire known
only to young blood possessed me. I hired a horse and rode from Tours
to Pont-de-Ruan in an hour and a quarter. There, ashamed of my folly, I
dismounted, and went on foot along the road, stepping cautiously like
a spy till I reached the terrace. The countess was not there, and I
imagined her ill; I had kept the key of the little gate, by which I
now entered; she was coming down the steps of the portico with the two
children to breathe in sadly and slowly the tender melancholy of the
landscape, bathed at that moment in the setting sun.

"Mother, here is Felix," said Madeleine.

"Yes," I whispered; "it is I. I asked myself why I should stay at Tours
while I still could see you; why not indulge a desire that in a few days
more I could not gratify."

"He won't leave us again, mother," cried Jacques, jumping round me.

"Hush!" said Madeleine; "if you make such a noise the general will
come."

"It is not right," she said. "What folly!"

The tears in her voice were the payment of what must be called a
usurious speculation of love.

"I had forgotten to return this key," I said smiling.

"Then you will never return," she said.

"Can we ever be really parted?" I asked, with a look which made her drop
her eyelids for all answer.

I left her after a few moments passed in that happy stupor of the spirit
where exaltation ends and ecstasy begins. I went with lagging step,
looking back at every minute. When, from the summit of the hill, I saw
the valley for the last time I was struck with the contrast it presented
to what it was when I first came there. Then it was verdant, then it
glowed, glowed and blossomed like my hopes and