magic characters, those words of love which swam before her eyes,
surrounded by dazzling blue and yellow circles, as if she were reading
her letter in the bright sunlight.

"I love you! Love me!" wrote Georges in every conceivable phrase.

At first she did not reply; but when she felt that he was fairly caught,
entirely in her power, she declared herself concisely:

"I never will love any one but my husband."

Ah! she was a true woman already, was little Chebe.




CHAPTER V

HOW LITTLE CHEBE'S STORY ENDED

Meanwhil September arrived. The hunting season brought together a large,
noisy, vulgar party at the chateau. There were long dinners at which the
wealthy bourgeois lingered slothfully and wearily, prone to fall asleep
like peasants. They went in carriages to meet the returning hunters in
the cool air of the autumn evening. The mist arose from the fields, from
which the crops had been gathered; and while the frightened game flew
along the stubble with plaintive cries, the darkness seemed to emerge
from the forests whose dark masses increased in size, spreading out over
the fields.