I replied that I was, and that she doubtless remembered my father.  It struck me as strange that she should smile at that question; she cheerfully accepted my arm and we set out on our return.

We walked along in silence; the wind was going down; the trees quivered gently, shaking the rain from the boughs.  Some distant flashes of lightning could still be seen; the perfume of humid verdure filled the warm air.  The sky soon cleared and the moon illumined the mountain.

I could not help thinking of the whimsicalness of chance, which had seen fit to make me the solitary companion of a woman of whose existence I knew nothing a few hours before.  She had accepted me as her escort on account of the name I bore, and leaned on my arm with quiet confidence.  In spite of her distraught air it seemed to me that this confidence was either very bold or very simple; and she must needs be either the one or the other, for at each step I felt my heart becoming at once proud and innocent.

We spoke of the sick woman she had just quitted, of the scenes along the route; it did not occur to us to ask the questions incident to a new acquaintance.  She spoke to me of my father, and always in the same tone I had noted when I first revealed my name—­that is, cheerfully, almost gayly.  By degrees I thought I understood why she did this, observing that she spoke thus of all, both living and dead, of life and of suffering and death.  It was because human sorrows had taught her nothing that could accuse God, and I felt the piety of her smile.

I told her of the solitary life I was leading.  Her aunt, she said, had seen more of my father than she, as they had sometimes played cards together after dinner.  She urged me to visit them, assuring me a welcome.

When about half way home she complained of fatigue and sat down to rest on a bench that the heavy foliage had protected from the rain.  I stood before her and watched the pale light of the moon playing on her face.  After a moment’s silence she arose and, in a constrained manner, observed: 

“Of what are you thinking?  It is time for us to think of returning.”

“I was wondering,” I replied, “why God created you, and I was saying to myself that it was for the sake of those who suffer.”

“That is an expression that, coming from you, I can not look upon except as a compliment.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you appear to be very young.”

“It sometimes happens,” I said, “that one is older than the face would seem to indicate.”

“Yes,” she replied, smiling, “and it sometimes happens that one is younger than his words would seem to indicate.”

“Have you no faith in experience?”

“I know that it is the name most young men give to their follies and their disappointments; what can one know at your age?”

“Madame, a man of twenty may know more than a woman of thirty.  The liberty which men enjoy enables them to see more of life and its experiences than women; they go wherever they please, and no barrier restrains them; they test life in all its phases.  When inspired by hope, they press forward to achievement; what they will they accomplish.  When they have reached the end, they return; hope has been lost on the route, and happiness has broken its word.”