“I fear,” said Gerard to his friends, “that Madame Graslin has had some fatal shock.”

“Where? how?” they asked.

“To her heart,” he answered.

The following day Roubaud started for Paris.  He had seen Madame Graslin, and found her so seriously ill that he wished for the assistance and advice of the ablest physician of the day.  But Veronique had only received Roubaud to put a stop to her mother and Aline’s entreaties that she would do something to benefit her; she herself knew that death had stricken her.  She refused to see Monsieur Bonnet, sending word to him that the time had not yet come.  Though all her friends who had come from Limoges to celebrate her birthday wished to be with her, she begged them to excuse her from fulfilling the duties of hospitality, saying that she desired to remain in the deepest solitude.  After Roubaud’s departure the other guests returned to Limoges, less disappointed than distressed; for all those whom Grossetete had brought with him adored Veronique.  They were lost in conjecture as to what might have caused this mysterious disaster.

One evening, two days after the departure of the company, Aline brought Catherine to Madame Graslin’s apartment.  La Farrabesche stopped short, horrified at the change so suddenly wrought in her mistress, whose face seemed to her almost distorted.

“Good God, madame!” she cried, “what harm that girl has done!  If we had only foreseen it, Farrabesche and I, we would never have taken her in.  She has just heard that madame is ill, and sends me to tell Madame Sauviat she wants to speak to her.”

“Here!” cried Veronique.  “Where is she?”

“My husband took her to the chalet.”

“Very good,” said Madame Graslin; “tell Farrabesche to go elsewhere.  Inform that lady that my mother will go to her; tell her to expect the visit.”

As soon as it was dark Veronique, leaning on her mother’s arm, walked slowly through the park to the chalet.  The moon was shining with all its brilliancy, the air was soft, and the two women, visibly affected, found encouragement, of a sort, in the things of nature.  The mother stopped now and then, to rest her daughter, whose sufferings were poignant, so that it was well-nigh midnight before they reached the path that goes down from the woods to the sloping meadow where the silvery roof of the chalet shone.  The moonlight gave to the surface of the quiet water, the tint of pearls.  The little noises of the night, echoing in the silence, made softest harmony.  Veronique sat down on the bench of the chalet, amid this beauteous scene of the starry night.  The murmur of two voices and the footfall of two persons still at a distance on the sandy shore were brought by the water, which sometimes, when all is still, reproduces sounds as faithfully as it reflects objects on the surface.  Veronique recognized at once the exquisite voice of the rector, and the rustle of his cassock, also the movement of some silken stuff that was probably the material of a woman’s gown.