Leon soon put on an air of superiority before his comrades, avoided their company, and completely neglected his work.

He waited for her letters; he re-read them; he wrote to her. He called her to mind with all the strength of his desires and of his memories. Instead of lessening¹ with absence, this longing² to see her again grew, so that at last on Saturday morning he escaped from his office.

When, from the summit of the hill, he saw in the valley below the church-spire with its tin flag swinging in the wind, he felt that delight mingled³ with triumphant⁴ vanity and egoistic tenderness that millionaires must experience when they come back to their native village.

He went rambling⁵ round her house. A light was burning in the kitchen. He watched for her shadow behind the curtains, but nothing appeared.

Mere⁶ Lefrancois, when she saw him, uttered many exclamations⁷. She thought he “had grown and was thinner,” while Artemise, on the contrary, thought him stouter⁸ and darker.

He dined in the little room as of yore, but alone, without the tax-gatherer; for Binet, tired of waiting for the “Hirondelle,” had definitely put forward his meal one hour, and now he dined punctually at five, and yet he declared usually the rickety old concern “was late.”

Leon, however, made up his mind, and knocked at the doctor’s door. Madame was in her room, and did not come down for a quarter of an hour. The doctor seemed delighted to see him, but he never stirred out that evening, nor all the next day.

He saw her alone in the evening, very late, behind the garden in the lane; in the lane, as she had the other one! It was a stormy night, and they talked under an umbrella by lightning flashes.

Their separation was becoming intolerable. “I would rather die!” said Emma. She was

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