"He has promised to come back. You want him to come back, don't you?"
"For your sake and Philippe's—yes, perhaps—Some day a long time from now."
"No, right away."
Reassured little by little, Elizabeth told little Marie Louise, who was too impressionable, to go back to her playfellows. She herself being unable to regain her self-possession, walked up and down the house. At last she crept on tiptoe to the door. Erect and motionless, on the point of going out, she looked down the road as far as the trees. Perhaps Albert was wandering about there, being unable to decide to leave these places which must recall his childhood and so many memories. So many memories? No, he had seen his children, nothing else could interest him. He had gone back, no doubt. Nevertheless, "he seemed sad," Marie Louise had said. If he were suddenly to appear at the turn of the road, there before her, what would she do? She did not know, she reached no decision and time went on.
Evening came, an autumn evening sharp and almost freezing. She looked for a shawl to cover her shoulders and continued to gaze distractedly, as if before the day ended, she were calling the danger she feared. Darkness which already filled the valley, was ascending the mountain, hastening to overtake the forest of thick, black pine trees, which seemed like a foretaste of night. The red of the sunset streaked the sky: the first star shewed itself above Les Quatre Seigneurs.
Elizabeth could not make up her mind to go in. The change in the light gave an appearance of motion to the bushes and to the trees on the road. Every moment she thought she saw someone coming and stood trembling, her feet glued to the threshold. After many mistakes, she recognized a human shape coming up the road. Fear made her knees tremble. No, it was not he; it was a woman, bent, thin and slow. It was Albert's mother. Out of breath, her limbs weak, overcome with weariness, she was painfully dragging herself along. Elizabeth, reassured, freed herself with a great effort, ran to her, saw that she was worn out; took her arm, made her come in, and placed her beside the hearth.
"Why did you not tell me you were coming, Mother? I would have sent the farmer to meet you with his car. There is no carriage at Uriage now, and you have had to walk all the way."
Mme. Derize smiled in a way which meant, "How often I have done without carriages!" But she had not reckoned with her age, nor her weakness, and was regaining her breath with difficulty. Marie Louise, Philippe and the little Verniers, who surrounded her, watched her with the surprise of children at old age or illness. Elizabeth begged her friend Blanche to take them away. Left alone with her mother-in-law for whom she prepared a cup of boiling tea, with a little rum in it, she saw her become refreshed little by little, and then sit up, her face expressing that peace, so pure and noble, yet tinged with sadness, with which she accepted all the happenings of life. Then Elizabeth asked herself the reason for her departure from Grenoble, and whether that unexpected visit did not have something to do with Albert's arrival. Mme. Derize did not let her wait long for an explanation which she was eager to give.
"Elizabeth, my son has been with me for three days. He has changed very much, he is worried, uneasy and nervous. He is not happy."
Attentive and anxious, Elizabeth was silent.