“But his wife looked concerned.
”‘These damp days in the woods are bringing the rheumatism out again, I fear,’ she said sadly; ‘but I must not murmur; I have had almost too happy a life, even compared with my dear lady. No, I would grudge nothing for her.’
“Pierre kissed her—more affectionately even than usual, as he bade her good-night. Then he went up to his own little room, his mother thought, to go to bed and sleep as usual.
“But early the next morning—very early, while the autumn haze was still over the woods, and the hoarfrost on the fields, there came a soft tap to young Madame Delmar’s door. Nanette was up already, for her husband was working just now at some distance, and she had to get his soup ready betimes, and so, as he had half hoped, Pierre Germain found her alone.
“He quickly explained his errand. He had come to charge her with the duty of telling his parents that he had gone.
”‘They must not think me disobedient,’ he said. ‘I feel that I am right, and they too will come to see it. My father is not what he was; if he set off on the journey alone he might fall ill on the way and we never know it; or if I went with him I might be obliged to nurse him in some strange place, feeling miserable at nothing being done. No, Nanette, father is best at home. I am young and strong, and I have so often thought over this, and all that I might have to do, that it seems to me as if I had got it by heart. But you, Nanette, who have seen them so much more lately than we, who have been in Paris and know all about where they live and everything, I want you to talk to me, and tell me all you can, so that I shall feel less confused when I get there.’
”‘Willingly,’ said Nanette. And then after putting the rest of the soup they had had on to the fire again to heat for Pierre, and fetching some bread and a couple of eggs to beat up into an omelette—he must have a good breakfast before starting, she said—she sat down and told him all she could think of. She described the house, the rooms occupied by Edmée and her mother, the one or two among the servants she thought better off than the others, though the only one she seemed to have any real confidence in was Marguerite Ribou.
”‘And even she,’ said Pierre, ‘she has more reason to wish for revenge than any of them—are you sure we can trust her?’
”‘She has no ill-will, nothing but good feelings to our ladies,’ said Nanette, thoughtfully. ‘But beyond that—as to the Sarinet family, certainly I am sure she is bitter past words. And that Victorine may have influenced her! Of her I need not tell you to beware.’
”‘Then if all is still as usual with them when I get there,’ said Pierre, ‘how should I proceed? It would not be wise to say I came from Valmont to see the Countess.’