both experienced a profound melancholy. Brigitte looked at
me in pity. We sat down on a rock near a wild gorge and passed two entire
hours there; her half-veiled eyes plunged into my soul, crossing a glance
from mine; then wandered to nature, to the heavens and the valley.

"Ah! my dear child," she said, "how I pity you! You do not love me."

To reach that rock we had to travel two leagues; two more in returning
makes four. Brigitte was afraid of neither fatigue nor darkness. We set
out at eleven at night, expecting to reach home some time in the morning.
When we went on long tramps she always dressed in a blue blouse and the
apparel of a man, saying that skirts were not made for bushes. She walked
before me in the sand with a firm step and such a charming mingling of
feminine delicacy and childlike innocence, that I stopped every few
moments to look at her. It seemed that, once started, she had to
accomplish a difficult but sacred task; she walked in front like a
soldier, her arms swinging, her voice ringing through the woods in song;
suddenly she would turn, come to me and kiss me. This was on the outward
journey; on the return she leaned on my arm; then more songs,
confidences, tender avowals in low tones, although we were alone, two
leagues from anywhere. I do not recall a single word spoken on the return
that was not of love or friendship.

Another night we struck out through the woods, leaving the road which led
to the rock. Brigitte was tramping along so stoutly and her little velvet
cap on her light hair made her look so much like a resolute youth, that I
forgot she was a woman when there were no obstacles in our path. More
than once she was obliged to call me to her aid when I, without thinking
of her, had pushed on ahead. I can not describe the effect produced on me
in the clear night air, in the midst of the forest, by that voice of
hers, half-joyous and half-plaintive, coming, as it were, from that
little schoolboy body wedged in between roots and trunks of trees, unable
to advance. I took her in my arms.

"Come, Madame," I cried, laughing, "you are a pretty little mountaineer,
but you are blistering your white hands, and in spite of your hobnailed
shoes, your stick and your martial air, I see that you must be carried."

We arrived at the rock breathless; about my body was strapped a leather
belt to which was attached a wicker bottle. When we were seated on the
rock, my dear Brigitte asked for the bottle;