Paul answered by showing his sketch-book.
"Ah, you are going to draw?"
"Yes, sir; I am going to draw, to take a sketch of the tower; that old tower which you see on the right side of the hill."
"Well, Master Paul, will you be so kind," asked Monsieur Roger, "as to allow me to go with you and explore this old tower?"
Paul, on hearing this proposal, which he could not refuse, made an involuntary movement of dismay, exactly similar to that he had made the night before.
"Oh, fear nothing," said Monsieur Roger, good-naturedly. "I will not bore you either with physical science nor chemistry. I hope you will accept me, therefore, as your companion on the way, without any apprehensions of that kind of annoyance."
"Then, let us go, sir," answered Paul, a little ashamed to have had his thoughts so easily guessed.
They took a short cut across the fields, passing wide expanses of blossoming clover; they crossed a road, they skirted fields of wheat and of potatoes. At last they arrived upon the wooded hill of Heurtebize, at the foot of the old tower, which still proudly raised its head above the valleys.
"What a lovely landscape!" said Monsieur Roger, when he had got his breath.
"The view is beautiful," said Paul, softly; "but it is nothing like the view you get up above there."