In this frame of mind he followed in her footsteps, cautiously, and at a distance, when she suddenly turned, as if waiting for him to rejoin her.  He then perceived that they had reached the end of the copse, and before them lay an open space, on which the cut lumber lay in cords, forming dark heaps on the frosty ground.  Here and there were allotments of chosen trees and poles, among which a thin spiral of smoke indicated the encampment of the cutters.  Reine made straight for them, and immediately presented the new owner of the chateau to the workmen.  They made their awkward obeisances, scrutinizing him in the mistrustful manner customary with the peasants of mountainous regions when they meet strangers.  The master workman then turned to Reine, replying to her remarks in a respectful but familiar tone: 

“Make yourself easy, mamselle, we shall do our best and rush things in order to get through with the work.  Besides, if you will come this way with me, you will see that there is no idling; we are just now going to fell an oak, and before a quarter of an hour is over it will be lying on the ground, cut off as neatly as if with a razor.”

They drew near the spot where the first strokes of the axe were already resounding.  The giant tree did not seem affected by them, but remained haughty and immovable.  Then the blows redoubled until the trunk began to tremble from the base to the summit, like a living thing.  The steel had made the bark, the sapwood, and even the core of the tree, fly in shivers; but the oak had resumed its impassive attitude, and bore stoically the assaults of the workmen.  Looking upward, as it reared its proud and stately head, one would have affirmed that it never could fall.  Suddenly the woodsmen fell back; there was a moment of solemn and terrible suspense; then the enormous trunk heaved and plunged down among the brushwood with an alarming crash of breaking branches.  A sound as of lamentation rumbled through the icy forest, and then all was still.

The men, with unconscious emotion, stood contemplating the monarch oak lying prostrate on the ground.  Reine had turned pale; her dark eyes glistened with tears.

“Let us go,” murmured she to Julien; “this death of a tree affects me as if it were that of a Christian.”

They took leave of the woodsmen, and reentered the forest.  Reine kept silence and her companion was at a loss to resume the conversation; so they journeyed along together quietly until they reached a border line, whence they could perceive the smoke from the roofs of Vivey.

“You have only to go straight down the hill to reach your home,” said she, briefly; “au revoir, Monsieur de Buxieres.”

Thus they quitted each other, and, looking back, he saw that she slackened her speed and went dreamily on in the direction of Planche-au-Vacher.

CHAPTER V

LOVE’S INDISCRETION