obtain a loan which is needed for the
improvements required on the estate."

"Why, then, did you let him go?"

"I would willingly have kept him here, but his mother wished to
take him. A separation is as trying to her as to me, and we all but
quarrelled over it. I gave way."

"There was one way of satisfying all three--you might have gone also."

"Yes, but Monsieur le cure will tell you that a fortnight ago I was
chained to my arm-chair, swearing under my breath like a pagan, and
cursing the follies of my youth!--Forgive me, my father; I mean that I
had the gout, and I forgot that I am not the only sufferer, and that
it racks the old age of the philosopher quite as much as that of the
courtier."

The fresh wind which often rises just at sunset was already rustling in
the leaves; long shadows darkened the course of the Yonne and stretched
across the plain; the water, slightly troubled, reflected a confused
outline of its banks and the clouded blue of the sky. The three
gentlemen stopped at the end of the terrace and gazed into the already
fading distance. A black spot, which they had just observed in the
middle of the river, caught a gleam of light in passing a low meadow
between two hills, and for a moment took shape as a barge, then was lost
again, and could not be distinguished from the water. Another moment,
and it reappeared more distinctly; it was indeed a barge, and now the
horse could be seen towing it against the current. Again it was lost at
a bend of the river shaded by willows, and they had to resign themselves
to incertitude for several minutes. Then a white handkerchief was
waved on the prow of the boat, and Monsieur de Lamotte uttered a joyful
exclamation.

"It is indeed they!" he cried. "Do you see them, Monsieur le cure? I see
my boy; he is waving the handkerchief, and his mother is with him. But
I think there is a third person--yes, there is a man, is there not? Look
well."

"Indeed," said the cure, "if my bad sight does not deceive me, I should
say there was someone seated near the rudder; but it looks like a
child."

"Probably someone from the neighbourhood, who has profited by the chance
of a lift home."

The boat was advancing rapidly; they could now hear the cracking of the
whip with which the servant urged on the tow-horse. And now it stopped,
at an easy landing-place, barely fifty paces from the terrace. Madame de
Lamotte landed with her son and the stranger, and her husband descended