he felt as if he were hurrying at a headlong pace. The thought kept
going round and round in his brain like a little torturing wheel, which
nothing would stop, that after all Marie _was_ going to the Dwarf's
Valley this evening, just as Geoffroi had said. Geoffroi's words were
still sounding in his ears, and his right hand was clenched, as he had
clenched it when the whirlwind of anger first convulsed him.

He entered his own cottage, hardly knowing what he did.

Old Aimée was bending over the cauldron, cutting up cabbage for the
soup.

"Good-bye, Grandmother," he said. "I am going to the Dwarf's Valley."

Aimée looked up at him out of her keen old eyes.

"And why are you going there in the dark?" she said, "'Tis an evil
meeting place after the sun has set."

"Why do you say meeting place, Grandmother Whom do you think I am going
to meet there?"

"The blessed Saints protect you," she replied, "less you should meet
Whom you would not."

Antoine strode out again, without saying more. He fancied he was in the
Valley of Dwarfs already, about to meet Marie. He saw the weird, gnarled
trunks of trees on either hand, that grew among--sometimes writhed
around--the huge fantastic boulders: the dark cave-like recesses, formed
strangely between and under them where the dwarfs lay hidden to emerge