“Yes” she explained, “we have at last come to live here. It is surely more suitable and consistent with our position. Besides, shouldn’t Dilette get used to her fortune?”
I hastened to express approval. No doubt she mourned the loss of her son-in-law, but it was a sort of compensation, too, to be living in the chateau.
“And where are M. Mairieux and Dilette?” I enquired.
“I don’t know exactly,” she replied. “They have gone out together, as they do every afternoon. Perhaps you will find them at the edge of the wood, or perhaps they have gone as far as the Green Fountain.”
“I’ll go and look for them.”
“And come back for dinner.”
I thanked her, and set out on my search. But on the way I changed my mind about following them into the wood, and took the path that led to the cemetery. I found my gay little field of the dead with its air of a neglected garden. M. Mairieux and Dilette had preceded me, and at sight of them I felt again the emotion of so much youth and love lost to them both. The grandfather, assisted by his granddaughter, whom the work amused, was carefully replacing the twisted ivy over a new inscription.
And I read on the stone, beside that other name:
RAYMOND CERNAT
DEAD AT THE AGE OF THIRTY-FIVE
We returned to the chateau together. I had taken Dilette’s hand, and was admiring the calmness of M. Mairieux, whom I had scarcely seen at Cernay’s funeral. He had without doubt grown old, but he resisted age, resolved to accept without complaint the burden of his daily life, and to keep on for the sake of the orphan daughter.