At last, as time went on, Miette and Silvere began to tire of only seeing each other’s reflection.  The novelty of their play was gone, and now they began to dream of keener pleasures than the well could afford them.  In this longing for reality which came upon them, there was the wish to see each other face to face, to run through the open fields, and return out of breath with their arms around each other’s waist, clinging closely together in order that they might the better feel each other’s love.  One morning Silvere spoke of climbing over the wall, and walking in the Jas with Miette.  But the child implored him not to perpetrate such folly, which would place her at Justin’s mercy.  He then promised to seek some other means.

The wall in which the well was set made a sudden bend a few paces further on, thereby forming a sort of recess, where the lovers would be free from observation, if they were to take shelter there.  The question was how to reach this recess.  Silvere could no longer entertain the idea of climbing over, as Miette had appeared so afraid.  He secretly thought of another plan.  The little door which Macquart and Adelaide had set up one night long years previously had remained forgotten in this remote corner.  The owner of the Jas-Meiffren had not even thought of blocking it up.  Blackened by damp and green with moss, its lock and hinges eaten away with rust, it looked like a part of the old wall.  Doubtless the key was lost; the grass growing beside the lower boards, against which slight mounds had formed, amply proved that no one had passed that way for many a long year.  However, it was the lost key that Silvere hoped to find.  He knew with what devotion his aunt Dide allowed the relics of the past to lie rotting wherever they might be.  He searched the house for a week without any result, and went stealthily night by night to see if he had at last put his hand on the right key during the daytime.  In this way he tried more than thirty keys which had doubtless come from the old property of the Fouques, and which he found all over the place, against the walls, on the floors, and at the bottom of drawers.  He was becoming disheartened, when all at once he found the precious key.  It was simply tied by a string to the street door latch-key, which always remained in the lock.  It had hung there for nearly forty years.  Aunt Dide must every day have touched it with her hand, without ever making up her mind to throw it away, although it could now only carry her back sorrowfully into the past.  When Silvere had convinced himself that it really opened the little door, he awaited the ensuing day, dreaming of the joyful surprise which he was preparing for Miette.  He had not told her for what he had been searching.