When she reached the two patient animals, who were probably accustomed
to these long halts, she called. There was no reply. A woman's glove
and two riding whips lay on the beaten-down grass. So they had no
doubt sat down there awhile and then walked away leaving their horses
tied.
She waited a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes, surprised, not
understanding what could be keeping them. She had dismounted. She sat
there, leaning against a tree trunk. Suddenly a thought came to her as
she glanced again at the glove, the whips and the two horses left tied
there, and she sprang to her saddle with an irresistible desire to
make her escape.
She started off at a gallop for the "Poplars." She was turning things
over in her mind, trying to reason, to put two and two together, to
compare facts. How was it that she had not suspected this sooner? How
was it that she had not noticed anything? How was it she had not
guessed the reason of Julien's frequent absences, the renewal of his
former attention to his appearance and the improvement in his temper?
She now recalled Gilberte's nervous abruptness, her exaggerated
affection and the kind of beaming happiness in which she seemed to
exist latterly and that so pleased the comte.
She reined in her horse, as she wanted to think, and the quick pace
disturbed her ideas.
As soon as the first emotion was over she became almost calm, without
jealousy or hatred, but filled with contempt. She hardly gave Julien a
thought; nothing he might do could astonish her. But the double
treachery of the comtesse, her friend, disgusted her. Everyone, then,
was treacherous, untruthful and false. And tears came to her eyes. One
sometimes mourns lost illusions as deeply as one does the death of a
friend.
She resolved, however, to act as though she knew nothing, to close the
doors of her heart to all ordinary affection and to love no one but
Paul and her parents and to endure other people with an undisturbed
countenance.
As soon as she got home she ran to her son, carried him up to her room
and kissed him passionately for an hour.
Julien came home to dinner, smiling and attentive, and appeared
interested as he asked: "Are not father and little mother coming this
year?"
She was so grateful to him for this little attention that she almost
forgave him for the discovery she had made in the wood, and she was
filled all of a sudden with an intense desire to see without delay the
two beings in the world whom she loved next to Paul, and passed the
whole evening writing to them to hasten their journey.
They promised to be there on the 20th of May and it was now the 7th.