overtake him, you have only to go along the path that leads to the
meadow; and the mill is at the end of it."

Genestas preferred seeing the country to waiting about indefinitely
for Benassis' return, so he set out along the way that led to the
flour-mill. When he had gone beyond the irregular line traced by the
town upon the hillside, he came in sight of the mill and the valley,
and of one of the loveliest landscapes that he had ever seen.

The mountains bar the course of the river, which forms a little lake
at their feet, and raise their crests above it, tier on tier. Their
many valleys are revealed by the changing hues of the light, or by the
more or less clear outlines of the mountain ridges fledged with their
dark forests of pines. The mill had not long been built. It stood just
where the mountain stream fell into the little lake. There was all the
charm about it peculiar to a lonely house surrounded by water and
hidden away behind the heads of a few trees that love to grow by the
water-side. On the farther bank of the river, at the foot of a
mountain, with a faint red glow of sunset upon its highest crest,
Genestas caught a glimpse of a dozen deserted cottages. All the
windows and doors had been taken away, and sufficiently large holes
were conspicuous in the dilapidated roofs, but the surrounding land
was laid out in fields that were highly cultivated, and the old garden
spaces had been turned into meadows, watered by a system of irrigation
as artfully contrived as that in use in Limousin. Unconsciously the
commandant paused to look at the ruins of the village before him.

How is it that men can never behold any ruins, even of the humblest
kind, without feeling deeply stirred? Doubtless it is because they
seem to be a typical representation of evil fortune whose weight is