lue, the leaves no
longer stirred. There were spaces full of heather in flower, and plots
of violets alternated with the confused patches of the trees that were
grey, fawn, or golden coloured, according to the nature of their leaves.
Often in the thicket was heard the fluttering of wings, or else the
hoarse, soft cry of the ravens flying off amidst the oaks.

They dismounted. Rodolphe fastened up the horses. She walked on in
front on the moss between the paths. But her long habit got in her way,
although she held it up by the skirt; and Rodolphe, walking behind her,
saw between the black cloth and the black shoe the fineness of her white
stocking, that seemed to him as if it were a part of her nakedness.

She stopped. "I am tired," she said.

"Come, try again," he went on. "Courage!"

Then some hundred paces farther on she again stopped, and through her
veil, that fell sideways from her man's hat over her hips, her face
appeared in a bluish transparency as if she were floating under azure
waves.

"But where are we going?"

He did not answer. She was breathing irregularly. Rodolphe looked round
him biting his moustache. They came to a larger space where the coppice
had been cut. They sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, and Rodolphe
began speaking to her of his love. He did not begin by frightening her
with compliments. He was calm, serious, melancholy.

Emma listened to him with bowed head, and stirred the bits of wood on
the ground with the tip of her foot. But at the words, "Are not our
destinies now one?"

"Oh, no!" she replied. "You know that well. It is impossible!" She rose
to go. He seized her by the wrist. She stopped. Then, having gazed
at him for a few moments with an amorous and humid look, she said
hurriedly--

"Ah! do not speak of it again! Where are the horses? Let us go back."

He made a gesture of anger and annoyance. She repeated:

"Where are the horses? Where are the horses?"

Then smiling a strange smile, his pupil fixed, his teeth set, he
advanced with outstretched arms. She recoiled trembling. She stammered:

"Oh, you frighten me! You hurt me! Let me go!"

"If it must be," he went on, his face changing; and he again became
respectful, caressing, timid. She gave him her arm. They went back. He
said--

"What was the matter with you? Why? I do not understand. You were
mistaken, no doubt. In my soul you are as a Madonna on a pedestal, in
a place lofty, secure, immaculate. But I nee