Sabron longed for a change with autumn, when the falling leaves made the roads golden roundabout the Château d'Esclignac. He thought he would like to go away. He rode his horse one day up to the property of the hard-hearted unforgiving lady and, finding the gate open, rode through the grounds up to the terrace. Seeing no one, he sat in his saddle looking over the golden country to the Rhone and the castle of the good King René, where the autumn mists were like banners floating from the towers.
There was a solitary beauty around the lovely place that spoke to the young officer with a sweet melancholy. He fancied that Miss Redmond must often have looked out from one of the windows, and he wondered which one. The terrace was deserted and leaves from the vines strewed it with red and golden specters. Pitchouné raced after them, for the wind started them flying, and he rolled his tawny little body over and over in the rustling leaves. Then a rabbit, which before the arrival of Sabron had been sitting comfortably on the terrace stones, scuttled away like mad, and Pitchouné, somewhat hindered by his limp, tore after it.
The deserted château, the fact that there was nothing in his military life beyond the routine to interest him now in Tarascon, made Sabron eagerly look forward to a change, and he waited for letters from the minister of war which would send him to a new post.
The following day after his visit to the château he took a walk, Pitchouné at his heels, and stood aside in the highroad to let a yellow motor pass him, but the yellow motor at that moment drew up to the side of the road while the chauffeur got out to adjust some portion of the mechanism. Some one leaned from the yellow motor window and Sabron came forward to speak to the Marquise d'Esclignac and another lady by her side.
"How do you do, Monsieur? Do you remember us?"
(Had he ever forgotten them?) He regretted so very much not having been able to dine with them in the spring.
"And your sick friend?" asked Madame d'Esclignac keenly, "did he recover?"
"Yes," said Sabron, and Miss Redmond, who leaned forward, smiled at him and extended her pretty hand. Sabron opened the motor door.
"What a darling dog!" Miss Redmond cried. "What a bewitching face he has! He's an Irish terrier, isn't he?"
Sabron called Pitchouné, who diverted his attention from the chauffeur to come and be hauled up by the collar and presented. Sabron shook off his reticence.