listen to no further promptings, that he would cast no further glance
upon glowing, dissolute Paris, and he reached the station just in time to
climb into a car. The train started and he journeyed on, leaning out of
his compartment and offering his face to the cool night breeze in order
that it might calm and carry off the evil fever that had possessed him.

The night was moonless, but studded with such pure and such glowing stars
that the country could be seen spreading far away beneath a soft bluish
radiance. Already at twenty minutes past eleven Marianne found herself on
the little bridge crossing the Yeuse, midway between Chantebled, the
pavilion where she and her husband lived, and the station of Janville.
The children were fast asleep; she had left them in the charge of Zoe,
the servant, who sat knitting beside a lamp, the light of which could be
seen from afar, showing like a bright spark amid the black line of the
woods.

Whenever Mathieu returned home by the seven o'clock train, as was his
wont, Marianne came to meet him at the bridge. Occasionally she brought
her two eldest boys, the twins, with her, though their little legs moved
but slowly on the return journey when, in retracing their steps, a
thousand yards or more, they had to climb a rather steep hillside. And
that evening, late though the hour was, Marianne had yielded to that
pleasant habit of hers, enjoying the delight of thus going forward
through the lovely night to meet the man she worshipped. She never went
further than the bridge which arched over the narrow river. She seated
herself on its broad, low parapet, as on some rustic bench, and thence
she overlooked the whole plain as far as the houses of Janville, before
which passed the railway line. And from afar she could see her husband
approaching along the road which wound between the cornfields.