CHAPTER I.

WARE WOLF!

I had afterwards such good reason to look back upon and remember
the events of that afternoon, that Catherine's voice seems to
ring in my brain even now. I can shut my eyes and see again,
after all these years, what I saw then--just the blue summer sky,
and one grey angle of the keep, from which a fleecy cloud was
trailing like the smoke from a chimney. I could see no more
because I was lying on my back, my head resting on my hands.
Marie and Croisette, my brothers, were lying by me in exactly the
same posture, and a few yards away on the terrace, Catherine was
sitting on a stool Gil had brought out for her. It was the
second Thursday in August, and hot. Even the jackdaws were
silent. I had almost fallen asleep, watching my cloud grow
longer and longer, and thinner and thinner, when Croisette, who
cared for heat no more than a lizard, spoke up sharply,
"Mademoiselle," he said, "why are you watching the Cahors road?"

I had not noticed that she was doing so. But something in the
keenness of Croisette's tone, taken perhaps with the fact that
Catherine did not at once answer him, aroused me; and I turned to
her. And lo! she was blushing in the most heavenly way, and her
eyes were full of tears, and she looked at us adorably. And we
all three sat up on our elbows, like three puppy dogs, and looked
at her. And there was a long silence. And then she said quite