“Really,” said my elder sister, “you must be quite crazy to want to paddle about the fields in such weather.”
But, despite mockery and jokes, we took a big umbrella and arm-in-arm walked about six miles without speaking a word. We loved each other.
After spending a peaceful fortnight with my brother-in-law, during which he got me Madame F.’s address in Lyons, I could no longer resist a pilgrimage to St Eynard, such as I had made sixteen years before.
There soared the ancient rock, there stood the small white house ... to-day, her old home; to-morrow, perhaps, Estelle herself! Sixteen years had passed as one night, all was unchanged. The little shady path, the old tower, the leafy vines, the glorious view over the valley. Till then I had kept calm, only murmuring, “Estelle! Estelle! Estelle!” but now, overcome with emotion, I fell prone on my face, hearing with each heart-beat the fatal words:
“Past! Past! Gone for ever!”
I arose, and chipping from the tower a morsel of stone that she perchance may have touched, went on my way.
There is the rock whereon I laid my posy of pink peas—but where are the flowers? Gone, or perhaps only past their flowering stage. Here is the cherry tree. How grown!
I break off a fragment of bark and, passing my arms around the trunk, press it passionately to my breast.
Dear tree, you remember her! You understand!
At the avenue gate I resolved to go up to the house; perhaps the new owners would not be too suspicious of me. In the garden I met an old lady who seemed startled at the sight of a stranger.