vast uncultivated tracts, where one went duck-shooting in winter.  And there was yet a third part of the estate, acres upon acres of equally sterile soil, all sand and gravel, descending in a gentle slope to the embankment of the railway line.  It was indeed a stretch of country lost to culture, where the few good patches of loam remained unproductive, inclosed within the waste land.  But the spot had all the beauty and exquisite wildness of solitude, and was one that appealed to healthy minds fond of seeing nature in freedom.  And on that lovely night one could nowhere have found more perfect and more balmy quiet.

Marianne, who since coming to the district had already threaded the woodland paths, explored the stretches of brushwood around the meres, and descended the pebbly slopes, let her eyes travel slowly over the expanse, divining spots she had visited and was fond of, though the darkness now prevented her from seeing them.  In the depths of the woods an owl raised its soft, regular cry, while from a pond on the right ascended a faint croaking of frogs, so far away that it sounded like the vibration of crystal.  And from the other side, the side of Paris, there came a growing rumble which, little by little, rose above all the other sounds of the night.  She heard it, and at last lent ear to nothing else.  It was the train, for whose familiar roar she waited every evening.  As soon as it left Monval station on its way to Janville, it gave token of its coming, but so faintly that only a practised ear could distinguish its rumble amid the other sounds rising from the country side.  For her part, she heard it immediately, and thereupon followed it in fancy through every phase of its journey.  And never had she been better able to do so than on that splendid night, amid the profound quietude of the earth’s slumber.  It had left Monval, it was turning beside the brickworks, it was skirting St. George’s fields.  In another two minutes it would be at Janville.  Then all at once its white light shone out beyond the poplar trees of Le Mesnil Rouge, and the panting of the engine grew louder, like that of some giant racer drawing near.  On that side the plain spread far away into a dark, unknown region, beneath the star-spangled sky, which on the very horizon showed a ruddy reflection like that of some brasier, the reflection of nocturnal Paris, blazing and smoking in the darkness like a volcano.

Marianne sprang to her feet.  The train stopped at Janville, and then its rumble rose again, grew fainter, and died away in the direction of Vieux-Bourg.  But she no longer paid attention to it.  She now had eyes and ears only for the road which wound like a pale ribbon between the dark patches of corn.  Her husband did not take ten minutes to cover the thousand yards and more which separated the station from the little bridge.  And, as a rule, she perceived and recognized him far off; but on that particular night, such was the deep silence that she could distinguish