ht me to this place.

On the fourth day after my coming, however, something happened to break
the spell. It chanced that I came late to dinner, and entered the room
hastily and without ceremony, expecting to find Madame and her sister
already seated. Instead, I found them talking in a low tone by the open
door, with every mark of disorder in their appearance; while Clon and
Louis stood at a little distance with downcast faces and perplexed
looks.

I had time to see all this, and then my entrance wrought a sudden
change. Clon and Louis sprang to attention; Madame and her sister came
to the table and sat down, and all made a shallow pretence of being at
their ease. But Mademoiselle's face was pale, her hand trembled; and
though Madame's greater self-command enabled her to carry off the matter
better, I saw that she was not herself. Once or twice she spoke harshly
to Louis; she fell at other times into a brown study; and when she
thought that I was not watching her, her face wore a look of deep
anxiety.

I wondered what all this meant; and I wondered more when, after the
meal, the two walked in the garden for an hour with Clon. Mademoiselle
came from this interview alone, and I was sure that she had been
weeping. Madame and the dark porter stayed outside some time longer;
then she, too, came in, and disappeared.

Clon did not return with her, and when I went into the garden five
minutes later, Louis also had vanished. Save for two women who sat
sewing at an upper window, the house seemed to be deserted. Not a sound
broke the afternoon stillness of room or garden, and yet I felt that
more was happening in this silence than appeared on the surface. I begin
to grow curious--suspicious, and presently slipped out myself by way of
the stables, and skirting the wood at the back of the house, gained
with a little trouble the bridge which crossed the stream and led to the
village.

Turning round at this point I could see the house, and I moved a little
aside into the underwood, and stood gazing at the windows, trying to
unriddle the matter. It was not likely that M. de Cocheforet would
repeat his visit so soon; and, besides, the women's emotions had been
those of pure dismay and grief, unmixed with any of the satisfaction
to which such a meeting, though snatched by stealth, must give rise.
I discarded my first thought therefore--that he had returned
unexpectedly--and I sought for another solution.

But no other was on the i