Sister Anne was in the habit of going several times a year to pray by the old oak, near which the unhappy Clotilde had breathed her last; but she had never been there with Frédéric. On that day they had climbed that hill, over which ran the road to the town, and Sister Anne, absorbed by her grief, had not noticed it.
Poor child! what melancholy presentiment oppresses your heart? You think of your mother's fate, and say to yourself:
"Shall I be as unhappy as she was?"
But she must needs return to the cabin; old Marguerite might need her attention. She walked slowly down the hillside, sighing as she looked back at the old oak. There he had parted from her, and there, as her mother had done, she would come every day to await his return.
She returned to her cabin, her goats, and her woods; she resumed her ordinary habits and occupations. But everything was changed in her eyes; the woods seemed gloomy to her; wherever she went, she was oppressed by ennui. Her garden no longer had any charm for her, her home was like a desert. Frédéric embellished everything, and Frédéric was not there! Before she knew him, her eyes looked with pleasure upon things that she now viewed with indifference; and yet, the things themselves had not changed; but she had lost peace of mind and repose, and nothing looked to her as it did before.
Frédéric had not said how many days he would be absent, and the girl hoped to see him soon; she did not dream that he had found his father at Grenoble, and that the Comte de Montreville was at that moment taking his son with him to Paris.
Each day, Sister Anne went to the hilltop with her goats, and her eyes were constantly fixed on the road to the town; she sought Frédéric there, even as poor Clotilde had sought her husband. She amused herself by tracing her lover's name on the ground with a stick; that was all that he had taught her, but she had practised writing the name so often with him that she had succeeded in writing it legibly.
Several days passed, and Frédéric did not return. Sister Anne still hoped, because she could not believe that her lover would break his promise; and every morning, as she went up the hill, she said to herself:
"To-day I shall certainly come down with him."
Vain hope! she must needs return alone once more to her cabin, to that abode whence repose had fled since love had crossed the threshold.