There was so much of nature, and even of goodness in the accent with which he pronounced these words, that the Countess felt her heart half comforted from the oppression which had weighed it down.  She gave herself up with more abandon to the gracious advances of her husband and to the slight incidents of her walk.

The phantoms disappeared little by little from her mind, and she began to say to herself that she had been the sport of a bad dream, and of a true madness, when a singular change in her husband’s face renewed all her terrors.  M. de Camors, in his turn, had become absent and visibly preoccupied with some grave care.  He spoke with an effort, made half replies, meditated; then stopped quickly to look around him, like a frightened child.  These strange ways, so different from his former temper, alarmed the young woman, the more so as she just then found herself in the most distant part of the wood.

There was an extraordinary similarity in the thoughts which occupied them both.  At the moment when Madame Camors was trembling for fear near her husband, he was trembling for her.

He thought he detected that they were followed; at different times he thought he heard in the thicket the cracking of branches, rattling of leaves, and finally the sound of stealthy steps.  These noises always ceased on his stopping, and began again the moment he resumed his walk.  He thought, a moment later, he saw the shadow of a man pass rapidly among the underwood behind them.  The idea of some woodman came first to his mind, but he could not reconcile this with the persistence with which they were followed.

He finally had no doubt that they were dogged—­but by whom?  The repeated menaces of Madame de Campvallon against the life of Madame de Camors, the passionate and unbridled character of this woman, soon presented itself to his thoughts, suggested this mysterious pursuit, and awakened these frightful suspicions.

He did not imagine for a moment that the Marquise would charge herself personally with the infliction of her vengeance; but she had said—­he then remembered—­that the hand would be found.  She was rich enough to find it, and this hand might now be here.

He did not wish to alarm his wife by calling her attention to this spectre, which he believed at her side, but he could not hide from her his agitation, which every movement of his caused her to construe as falsely as cruelly.

“Marie,” he said, “let us walk a little faster, I beg of you!  I am cold.”

He quickened his steps, resolved to return to the chateau by the public road, which was bordered with houses.

When he reached the border of the woods, although he thought he still heard at intervals the sound which had alarmed him, he reassured himself and resumed his flow of spirits as if a little ashamed even of his panic.  He stopped the Countess to look at the pretext of this excursion.  This was the rocky wall of the deep excavation of a marl-pit, long since abandoned.  The arbutus-trees of fantastic shape which covered the summit of these rocks, the pendant vines, the sombre ivy which carpeted the cliffs, the gleaming white stones, the vague reflections in the stagnant pool at the bottom of the pit, the mysterious light of the moon, made a scene of wild beauty.