We sit down on the bank which borders the lane.  We can see the town, the station and carts on the road; and yonder three villages make harmony, sometimes more carefully limned by bursts of sunshine.  The horizons entwine us in a murmur.  The crossing where we are is the spot where four roads make a movement of reunion.

But my spirit is no longer what it was.  Vaguely I seek, everywhere.  I must see things with all their consequences, and right to their source.  Against all the chains of facts I must have long arguments to bring; and the world’s chaos requires an interpretation equally terrible.

* * * * * *

There is a slight noise—­a frail passer-by and a speck which jumps round her feet.  Marie looks and says mechanically, like a devout woman, making the sign of the cross, “Poor little angel!”

It is little Antoinette and her dog.  She gropes for the edge of the road with a stick, for she has become quite blind.  They never looked after her.  They were going to do it, unendingly, but they never did it.  They always said, “Poor little angel,” and that was all.

She is so miserably clad that you lower your eyes before her, although she cannot see.  She wanders and seeks, incapable of understanding the wrong they have done, they have allowed to be done, the wrong which no one remembers.  Alas, to the prating indifference and the indolent negligence of men there is only this poor little blind witness.

She stops in front of us and puts out her hand awkwardly.  She is begging!  No one troubles himself about her now.  She is talking to her dog; he was born in the castle kennels—­Marie told me about him.  He was the last of a litter, ill-shaped, with a head too big, and bad eyes; and the Baroness said, as they were going to drown him, and because she is always thinking of good things, “Give him to the little blind girl.”  The child is training him to guide her; but he is young, he wants to play when other dogs go by, he hears her with listless ear.  It is difficult for him to begin serious work; and he plucks the string from her hands.  She calls to him; and waits.

Then, during a long time, a good many passers-by appear and vanish.  We do not look at all of them.

But lo, turning the corner like some one of importance, here comes a sleek and tawny mastiff, with the silvery tinkle of a trinket which gleams on his neck.  He is proclaiming and preceding his young mistress, Mademoiselle Evelyn de Monthyon, who is riding her pony.  The little girl caracoles sedately, clad in a riding habit, and armed with a crop.  She has been an orphan for a long time.  She is the mistress of the castle.  She is twelve years old and has millions.  A mounted groom in full livery follows her, looking like a stage-player or a chamberlain; and then, with measured steps, an elderly governess, dressed in black silk, and manifestly thinking of some Court.