Valentine, being more modest, did not believe that she was destined to undergo such energetic and violent experiences. She accommodated herself readily to the reserve which society imposed upon her as a duty ; she accepted it as a blessing and not as a law. She promised herself that she would steer clear of those ardent fantasies which made other women miserable before her eyes : the love of luxury, to which her grandmother sacrificed all pretence of dignity ; ambition, which tormented her mother with unfulfilled hopes ; love, which had so cruelly led her sister astray. This last thought brought tears to her eyes. That was the only important event in Valentine’s life ; but it had filled it, it had influenced her character, it had made her at once bold and timid : timid for herself, bold where her sister was concerned. It is true that she had never been able to prove to her the self-sacrificing courage of which she was conscious. Her sister’s name had never been mentioned by her mother in her presence ; she had never had a single opportunity to defend her or to be of service to her. Her desire was the more intense on that account, and this passionate affection which she cherished for a person whose image she saw only through the vague memories of childhood, was really the only romantic affection that had ever found a place in her heart.

The species of agitation which this repressed attachment had brought into her life had become intensified during the last few days. A vague rumor was current in the neighborhood that her sister had been seen in a town eight leagues away, where she had once lived temporarily for a few months. This time she had passed only one night there, and had not given her name ; but the people at the inn declared that they had recognized her. This report had reached the château of Raimbault at the other end of the Black Valley. A servant, eager to ingratiate himself with the countess, had repeated it to her. Chance willed that Valentine, who was at work in an adjoining room at that moment, heard her mother raise her voice and utter a name which made her heart leap. Thereupon, unable to control her anxiety and her curiosity, she listened and discovered the secret of the interview. This incident occurred on the eve of May first ; and now Valentine, excited and perturbed in mind, asked if that report was probable, and if it might not be that the people at the inn were mistaken in thinking that they recognized a person who had been exiled from the province for fifteen years.

As she indulged in these reflections, Mademoiselle de Raimbault, not thinking to slacken the pace of her horse, had gained a considerable lead on the calèche. When she remembered it she stopped, and being unable to distinguish anything in the darkness, she leaned forward to listen ; but, whether because the noise of the wheels was deadened by the long, damp grass that grew in the road, or because the loud, hurried breathing of her horse, impatient at the delay, prevented distant sounds from reaching her, she could hear nothing at all in the solemn silence of the night. She turned back at once, concluding that she had left the others far behind, and, after galloping for some time without meeting anyone, she stopped again to listen.

This time she heard only the chirp of the cricket, waking as the moon rose, and the distant barking of a dog.

She urged her horse on anew until she came to a fork in the road. She tried to make out which road she had come by, but the darkness made any sort of observation impossible. The wiser course would have been to wait there for the caléche, which must reach that point by one road or the other. But fright began to disturb the young woman’s judgment; to stand still in that state of uncertainty seemed to her the worst thing she could do. She fancied that her horse’s instinct would lead him toward the horses that were drawing the carriage, and that the sense of smell would guide him if his memory was at fault. The horse, left to his own judgment, took the left hand road. After a fruitless chase, Valentine, whose uncertainty constantly increased, thought that she recognized a large tree which she had noticed in the morning. That circumstance restored her courage to some extent; she even smiled at her cowardice, and urged her horse forward.

But she soon found that the road descended more and more into the depths of the valley. She did not know the country, which she had very seldom visited since she was a child, but it seemed to her that, in the morning, they had not left the higher ground at all. The aspect of the landscape had changed ; the moon, rising slowly above the horizon, shone obliquely through the interstices of the branches, and Valentine was able to distinguish objects which she had not noticed before. The road was wider, more open, more cut up by the feet of cattle and by cart-wheels; great branchless willows rose on both sides of the hedge, and, with their strange, mutilated figures outlined against the sky, seemed like so many hideous creatures on the point of moving their monstrous heads and armless bodies.

VI

Suddenly Valentine’s ear detected a dull, prolonged sound like the rumbling of a carriage. She left the road and took a path which led in the direction of that sound, which constantly grew louder, but changed its nature. If Valentine could have looked through the mass of flowering apple trees through which the moonbeams forced their way, she would have seen at a little distance the white, silvery line of the river rushing into a mill pond. But the increasing coolness of the air and a delicious odor of mint disclosed to her the proximity of the Indre, She concluded that she had gone considerably astray; but she decided to descend the stream, hoping soon to find a mill or a cottage where she could ask her way.