“I glanced at Miss Harriet out of the corner of my eye.  Her countenance did not change in the least.  But Celeste, the little servant, looked up at me.  She was a fat girl, of about eighteen years of age, rosy, fresh, as strong as a horse, and possessing the rare attribute of cleanliness.  I had kissed her at odd times in out-of-the-way corners, after the manner of travellers—­nothing more.

“The dinner being at length over, I went to smoke my pipe under the apple trees, walking up and down from one end of the enclosure to the other.  All the reflections which I had made during the day, the strange discovery of the morning, that passionate and grotesque attachment for me, the recollections which that revelation had suddenly called up, recollections at once charming and perplexing, perhaps also that look which the servant had cast on me at the announcement of my departure—­all these things, mixed up and combined, put me now in a reckless humor, gave me a tickling sensation of kisses on the lips and in my veins a something which urged me on to commit some folly.

“Night was coming on, casting its dark shadows under the trees, when I descried Celeste, who had gone to fasten up the poultry yard at the other end of the enclosure.  I darted toward her, running so noiselessly that she heard nothing, and as she got up from closing the small trapdoor by which the chickens got in and out, I clasped her in my arms and rained on her coarse, fat face a shower of kisses.  She struggled, laughing all the time, as she was accustomed to do in such circumstances.  Why did I suddenly loose my grip of her?  Why did I at once experience a shock?  What was it that I heard behind me?

“It was Miss Harriet, who had come upon us, who had seen us and who stood in front of us motionless as a spectre.  Then she disappeared in the darkness.

“I was ashamed, embarrassed, more desperate at having been thus surprised by her than if she had caught me committing some criminal act.

“I slept badly that night.  I was completely unnerved and haunted by sad thoughts.  I seemed to hear loud weeping, but in this I was no doubt deceived.  Moreover, I thought several times that I heard some one walking up and down in the house and opening the hall door.

“Toward morning I was overcome by fatigue and fell asleep.  I got up late and did not go downstairs until the late breakfast, being still in a bewildered state, not knowing what kind of expression to put on.

“No one had seen Miss Harriet.  We waited for her at table, but she did not appear.  At length Mother Lecacheur went to her room.  The English woman had gone out.  She must have set out at break of day, as she was wont to do, in order to see the sun rise.

“Nobody seemed surprised at this, and we began to eat in silence.

“The weather was hot, very hot, one of those broiling, heavy days when not a leaf stirs.  The table had been placed out of doors, under an apple tree, and from time to time Sapeur had gone to the cellar to draw a jug of cider, everybody was so thirsty.  Celeste brought the dishes from the kitchen, a ragout of mutton with potatoes, a cold rabbit and a salad.  Afterward she placed before us a dish of strawberries, the first of the season.