It was incomprehensible to her that her husband should for once lay claim to the same right, that he, who had been alarmed at the very idea of this journey home on foot, should appear now hardly to feel its inconveniences, while she was already more than half repenting of her resolve. A gust of wind tore his hat off and blew it down a steep bank where it could not possibly be reached. Arthur looked calmly after the fugitive and tossed his long brown hair back with an almost defiant movement. His feet sank deep into the wet moss at every step, and yet his gait had never seemed to Eugénie so firm, so elastic, as now. As they advanced into the forest, his languid air gradually vanished, his eyes brightened as they glanced sharply round in quest of the wished-for path. The dark damp woods seemed to have a re-animating power over him, in such deep draughts did he drink in the bracing pine-scented air, so briskly did he lead his wife along under the whispering trees. All at once he stopped and cried triumphantly,
"There, that is the way!"
Before them there was indeed a narrow footpath which ran straight through the forest, and, at some distance farther on, seemed to decline gently. Eugénie looked at it in surprise. She had not believed that her husband would prove a sure guide, and had quite made up her mind to losing their way completely.
"You seem very familiar with the country," said she, as she entered the path at his side.
He smiled, but the smile was less for her than for the place he found himself in; he looked round, scanning it on all sides with interest.
"I have not forgotten my old friends the woods yet, though it is long, very long, since we have seen each other."
Eugénie raised her head in astonishment. She had never heard such a tone in his voice; there was deep strongly-repressed feeling in it.
"Are you so fond of the woods?" she asked, involuntarily keeping up a conversation which would probably else have lapsed into the usual silence. "Why have you passed a whole month then without once setting foot in them?"
Arthur did not answer. He was gazing dreamily down at the green depths shrouded in mist.
"Why?" said he at last, sadly. "I don't know. Perhaps because I was too lazy. One loses everything in that city of yours, even one's taste for solitude in the woods."