BOOK II
WANDERING
I
A primrose dawn of spring touched the mountains as Madame de Ferrier and I stepped into the tunnel's mouth. The wind that goes like a besom before sunrise, swept off the fog to corners of the sky, except a few spirals which still unwound from the lake. The underground path to De Chaumont's manor descended by terraces of steps and entered blackness.
A rank odor of earth filled it; and I never passed that way without hearkening for the insect-like song of the rattlesnake. The ground was slippery, and thick darkness seemed to press the soul out of the body. Yet I liked it; for when we reached the staircase of rock that entered the house, she would vanish.
And so it was.
She did say—"Good-night—and good-morning."
And I answered, "Good-morning and good-night."
We were both physically exhausted. My head swarmed as with sparkles, and a thousand emotions tore me, for I was at the age when we risk all on chances. I sat alone on the steps, unmindful of that penetrating chill of stone which increases rather than decreases, the longer you sit upon it, and thought of all that had been said by my new friend at the camp-fire, while the moon went lower and lower, the potter turned his wheel, and the idiot slept.