Three months had elapsed. Du Roy's divorce had just been granted. His wife had resumed the name of Forestier, and, as the Walters were to leave on the 15th of July for Trouville, it was decided that he and they should spend a day in the country together before they started. A Thursday was selected, and they started at nine in the morning in a large traveling landau with six places, drawn by four horses with postilions. They were going to lunch at the Pavilion Henri-Quatre at Saint Germain. Pretty-boy had asked to be the only man of the party, for he could not endure the presence of the Marquis de Cazolles. But at the last moment it was decided that the Count de Latour-Yvelin should be called for on the way. He had been told the day before.

The carriage passed up the Avenue of the Champs ElyseÉs at a swinging trot, and then traversed the Bois de Boulogne. It was splendid summer weather, not too warm. The swallows traced long sweeping lines across the blue sky that one fancied one could still see after they had passed. The three ladies occupied the back seat, the mother between her daughters, and the men were with their backs to the horses, Walter between the two guests. They crossed the Seine, skirted Mount Valerien, and gained Bougival in order to follow the river as far as Le Pecq.

The Count de Latour-Yvelin, a man advancing towards middle-age, with long, light whiskers, gazed tenderly at Rose. They had been engaged for a month. George, who was very pale, often looked at Susan, who was pale too. Their eyes often met, and seemed to concert something, to understand one another, to secretly exchange a thought, and then to flee one another. Madame Walter was quiet and happy.

The lunch was a long one. Before starting back for Paris, George suggested a turn on the terrace. They stopped at first to admire the view. All ranged themselves in a line along the parapet, and went into ecstasies over the far-stretching horizon. The Seine at the foot of a long hill flowed towards Maisons-Lafitte like an immense serpent stretched in the herbage. To the right, on the summit of the slope, the aqueduct of Marly showed against the skyline its outline, resembling that of a gigantic, long-legged caterpillar, and Marly was lost beneath it in a thick cluster of trees. On the immense plain extending in front of them, villages could be seen dotted. The pieces of water at Le Vesinet showed like clear spots amidst the thin foliage of the little forest. To the left, away in the distance, the pointed steeple of Sastrouville could be seen.

Walter said: "Such a panorama is not to be found anywhere in the world. There is not one to match it in Switzerland."

Then they began to walk on gently, to have a stroll and enjoy the prospect. George and Susan remained behind. As soon as they were a few paces off, he said to her in a low and restrained voice: "Susan, I adore you. I love you to madness."

She murmured: "So do I you, Pretty-boy."

He went on: "If I do not have you for my wife, I shall leave Paris and this country."

She replied: "Ask Papa for my hand. Perhaps he will consent."

He made a gesture of impatience. "No, I tell you for the twentieth time that is useless. The door of your house would be closed to me. I should be dismissed from the paper, and we should not be able even to see one another. That is a pretty result, at which I am sure to arrive by a formal demand for you. They have promised you to the Marquis de Cazolles. They hope that you will end by saying 'yes,' and they are waiting for that."

She asked: "What is to be done?"

He hesitated, glancing at her, sidelong fashion. "Do you love me enough to run a risk?"

She answered resolutely: "Yes."

"A great risk?"

"Yes."

"The greatest of risks?"

"Yes."

"Have you the courage to set your father and mother at defiance?"

"Yes."

"Really now?"

"Yes."

"Very well, there is one way and only one. The thing must come from you and not from me. You are a spoilt child; they let you say whatever you like, and they will not be too much astonished at an act of daring the more on your part. Listen, then. This evening, on reaching home, you must go to your mamma first, your mamma alone, and tell her you want to marry me. She will be greatly moved and very angry—"

Susan interrupted him with: "Oh, mamma will agree."

He went on quickly: "No, you do not know her. She will be more vexed and angrier than your father. You will see how she will refuse. But you must be firm, you must not give way, you must repeat that you want to marry me, and no one else. Will you do this?"

"I will."

"On leaving your mother you must tell your father the same thing in a very serious and decided manner."

"Yes, yes; and then?"

"And then it is that matters become serious. If you are determined, very determined—very, very determined to be my wife, my dear, dear little Susan—I will—run away with you."

She experienced a joyful shock, and almost clapped her hands. "Oh! how delightful. You will run away with me. When will you run away with me?"

All the old poetry of nocturnal elopements, post-chaises, country inns; all the charming adventures told in books, flashed through her mind, like an enchanting dream about to be realized. She repeated: "When will you run away with me?"

He replied, in low tones: "This evening—to-night."

She asked, quivering: "And where shall we go to?"

"That is my secret. Reflect on what you are doing. Remember that after such a flight you can only be my wife. It is the only way, but is—it is very dangerous—for you."

She declared: "I have made up my mind; where shall I rejoin you?"

"Can you get out of the hotel alone?"

"Yes. I know how to undo the little door."

"Well, when the doorkeeper has gone to bed, towards midnight, come and meet me on the Place de la Concorde. You will find me in a cab drawn up in front of the Ministry of Marine."

"I will come."

"Really?"

"Really."

He took her hand and pressed it. "Oh! how I love you. How good and brave you are! So you don't want to marry Monsieur de Cazolles?"

"Oh! no."

"Your father was very angry when you said no?"

"I should think so. He wanted to send me back to the convent."

"You see that it is necessary to be energetic."

"I will be so."

She looked at the vast horizon, her head full of the idea of being ran off with. She would go further than that with him. She would be ran away with. She was proud of it. She scarcely thought of her reputation—of what shame might befall her. Was she aware of it? Did she even suspect it?

Madame Walter, turning round, exclaimed: "Come along, little one. What are you doing with Pretty-boy?"

They rejoined the others and spoke of the seaside, where they would soon be. Then they returned home by way of Chatou, in order not to go over the same road twice. George no longer spoke. He reflected. If the little girl had a little courage, he was going to succeed at last. For three months he had been enveloping her in the irresistible net of his love. He was seducing, captivating, conquering her. He had made himself loved by her, as he knew how to make himself loved. He had captured her childish soul without difficulty. He had at first obtained of her that she should refuse Monsieur de Cazolles. He had just obtained that she would fly with him. For there was no other way. Madame Walter, he well understood, would never agree to give him her daughter. She still loved him; she would always love him with unmanageable violence. He restrained her by his studied coldness; but he felt that she was eaten up by hungry and impotent passion. He could never bend her. She would never allow him to have Susan. But once he had the girl away he would deal on a level footing with her father. Thinking of all this, he replied by broken phrases to the remarks addressed to him, and which he did not hear. He only seemed to come to himself when they returned to Paris.

Susan, too, was thinking, and the bells of the four horses rang in her ears, making her see endless miles of highway under eternal moonlight, gloomy forests traversed, wayside inns, and the hurry of the hostlers to change horses, for every one guesses that they are pursued.

When the landau entered the court-yard of the mansion, they wanted to keep George to dinner. He refused, and went home. After having eaten a little, he went through his papers as if about to start on a long journey. He burnt some compromising letters, hid others, and wrote to some friends. From time to time he looked at the clock, thinking: "Things must be getting warm there." And a sense of uneasiness gnawed at his heart. Suppose he was going to fail? But what could he fear? He could always get out of it. Yet it was a big game he was playing that evening.

He went out towards eleven o'clock, wandered about some time, took a cab, and had it drawn up in the Place de la Concorde, by the Ministry of Marine. From time to time he struck a match to see the time by his watch. When he saw midnight approaching, his impatience became feverish. Every moment he thrust his head out of the window to look. A distant clock struck twelve, then another nearer, then two together, then a last one, very far away. When the latter had ceased to sound, he thought: "It is all over. It is a failure. She won't come." He had made up his mind, however, to wait till daylight. In these matters one must be patient.

He heard the quarter strike, then the half-hour, then the quarter to, and all the clocks repeated "one," as they had announced midnight. He no longer expected her; he was merely remaining, racking his brain to divine what could have happened. All at once a woman's head was passed through the window, and asked: "Are you there, Pretty-boy?"

He started, almost choked with emotion, "Is that you, Susan?"

"Yes, it is I."

He could not manage to turn the handle quickly enough, and repeated: "Ah! it is you, it is you; come inside."

She came in and fell against him. He said, "Go on," to the driver, and the cab started.

She gasped, without saying a word.

He asked: "Well, how did it go off?"

She murmured, almost fainting: "Oh! it was terrible, above all with mamma."

He was uneasy and quivering. "Your mamma. What did she say? Tell me."

"Oh! it was awful. I went into her room and told her my little story that I had carefully prepared. She grew pale, and then she cried: 'Never, never.' I cried, I grew angry. I vowed I would marry no one but you. I thought that she was going to strike me. She went on just as if she were mad; she declared that I should be sent back to the convent the next day. I had never seen her like that—never. Then papa came in, hearing her shouting all her nonsense. He was not so angry as she was, but he declared that you were not a good enough match. As they had put me in a rage, too, I shouted louder than they did. And papa told me to leave the room, with a melodramatic air that did not suit him at all. This is what decided me to run off with you. Here I am. Where are we going to?"

He had passed his arm gently round her and was listening with all his ears, his heart throbbing, and a ravenous hatred awakening within him against these people. But he had got their daughter. They should just see.

He answered: "It is too late to catch a train, so this cab will take us to Sevres, where we shall pass the night. To-morrow we shall start for La Roche-Guyon. It is a pretty village on the banks of the Seine, between Nantes and Bonnieres."

She murmured: "But I have no clothes. I have nothing."

He smiled carelessly: "Bah! we will arrange all that there."

The cab rolled along the street. George took one of the young girl's hands and began to kiss it slowly and with respect. He scarcely knew what to say to her, being scarcely accustomed to platonic love-making. But all at once he thought he noted that she was crying. He inquired, with alarm: "What is the matter with you, darling?"

She replied in tearful tones: "Poor mamma, she will not be able to sleep if she has found out my departure."

Her mother, indeed, was not asleep.

As soon as Susan had left the room, Madame Walter remained face to face with her husband. She asked, bewildered and cast down: "Good heavens! What is the meaning of this?"

Walter exclaimed furiously: "It means that that schemer has bewitched her. It is he who made her refuse Cazolles. He thinks her dowry worth trying for." He began to walk angrily up and down the room, and went on: "You were always luring him here, too, yourself; you flattered him, you cajoled him, you could not cosset him enough. It was Pretty-boy here, Pretty-boy there, from morning till night, and this is the return for it."

She murmured, livid: "I—I lured him?"

He shouted in her face: "Yes, you. You were all mad over him—Madame de Marelle, Susan, and the rest. Do you think I did not see that you could not pass a couple of days without having him here?"

She drew herself up tragically: "I will not allow you to speak to me like that. You forget that I was not brought up like you, behind a counter."

He stood for a moment stupefied, and then uttered a furious "Damn it all!" and rushed out, slamming the door after him. As soon as she was alone she went instinctively to the glass to see if anything was changed in her, so impossible and monstrous did what had happened appear. Susan in love with Pretty-boy, and Pretty-boy wanting to marry Susan! No, she was mistaken; it was not true. The girl had had a very natural fancy for this good-looking fellow; she had hoped that they would give him her for a husband, and had made her little scene because she wanted to have her own way. But he—he could not be an accomplice in that. She reflected, disturbed, as one in presence of great catastrophes. No, Pretty-boy could know nothing of Susan's prank.

She thought for a long time over the possible innocence or perfidy of this man. What a scoundrel, if he had prepared the blow! And what would happen! What dangers and tortures she foresaw. If he knew nothing, all could yet be arranged. They would travel about with Susan for six months, and it would be all over. But how could she meet him herself afterwards? For she still loved him. This passion had entered into her being like those arrowheads that cannot be withdrawn. To live without him was impossible. She might as well die.

Her thoughts wandered amidst these agonies and uncertainties. A pain began in her head; her ideas became painful and disturbed. She worried herself by trying to work things out; grew mad at not knowing. She looked at the clock; it was past one. She said to herself: "I cannot remain like this, I shall go mad. I must know. I will wake up Susan and question her."

She went barefooted, in order not to make a noise, and with a candle in her hand, towards her daughter's room. She opened the door softly, went in, and looked at the bed. She did not comprehend matters at first, and thought that the girl might still be arguing with her father. But all at once a horrible suspicion crossed her mind, and she rushed to her husband's room. She reached it in a bound, blanched and panting. He was in bed reading.

He asked, startled: "Well, what is it? What is the matter with you?"

She stammered: "Have you seen Susan?"

"I? No. Why?"

"She has—she has—gone! She is not in her room."

He sprang onto the carpet, thrust his feet into his slippers, and, with his shirt tails floating in the air, rushed in turn to his daughter's room. As soon as he saw it, he no longer retained any doubt. She had fled. He dropped into a chair and placed his lamp on the ground in front of him.

His wife had rejoined him, and stammered: "Well?"

He had no longer the strength to reply; he was no longer enraged, he only groaned: "It is done; he has got her. We are done for."

She did not understand, and said: "What do you mean? done for?"

"Yes, by Jove! He will certainly marry her now."

She gave a cry like that of a wild beast: "He, never! You must be mad!"

He replied, sadly: "It is no use howling. He has run away with her, he has dishonored her. The best thing is to give her to him. By setting to work in the right way no one will be aware of this escapade."

She repeated, shaken by terrible emotion: "Never, never; he shall never have Susan. I will never consent."

Walter murmured, dejectedly: "But he has got her. It is done. And he will keep her and hide her as long as we do not yield. So, to avoid scandal, we must give in at once."

His wife, torn by pangs she could not acknowledge, repeated: "No, no, I will never consent."

He said, growing impatient: "But there is no disputing about it. It must be done. Ah, the rascal, how he has done us! He is a sharp one. All the same, we might have made a far better choice as regards position, but not as regards intelligence and prospects. He will be a deputy and a minister."

Madame Walter declared, with savage energy: "I will never allow him to marry Susan. You understand—never."

He ended by getting angry and taking up, as a practical man, the cudgels on behalf of Pretty-boy. "Hold your tongue," said he. "I tell you again that it must be so; it absolutely must. And who knows? Perhaps we shall not regret it. With men of that stamp one never knows what may happen. You saw how he overthrew in three articles that fool of a Laroche-Mathieu, and how he did it with dignity, which was infernally difficult in his position as the husband. At all events, we shall see. It always comes to this, that we are nailed. We cannot get out of it."

She felt a longing to scream, to roll on the ground, to tear her hair out. She said at length, in exasperated tones: "He shall not have her. I won't have it."

Walter rose, picked up his lamp, and remarked: "There, you are stupid, just like all women. You never do anything except from passion. You do not know how to bend yourself to circumstances. You are stupid. I will tell you that he shall marry her. It must be."

He went out, shuffling along in his slippers. He traversed—a comical phantom in his nightshirt—the broad corridor of the huge slumbering house, and noiselessly re-entered his room.

Madame Walter remained standing, torn by intolerable grief. She did not yet quite understand it. She was only conscious of suffering. Then it seemed to her that she could not remain there motionless till daylight. She felt within her a violent necessity of fleeing, of running away, of seeking help, of being succored. She sought whom she could summon to her. What man? She could not find one. A priest; yes, a priest! She would throw herself at his feet, acknowledge everything, confess her fault and her despair. He would understand that this wretch must not marry Susan, and would prevent it. She must have a priest at once. But where could she find one? Whither could she go? Yet she could not remain like that.

Then there passed before her eyes, like a vision, the calm figure of Jesus walking on the waters. She saw it as she saw it in the picture. So he was calling her. He was saying: "Come to me; come and kneel at my feet. I will console you, and inspire you with what should be done."

She took her candle, left the room, and went downstairs to the conservatory. The picture of Jesus was right at the end of it in a small drawing-room, shut off by a glass door, in order that the dampness of the soil should not damage the canvas. It formed a kind of chapel in a forest of strange trees. When Madame Walter entered the winter garden, never having seen it before save full of light, she was struck by its obscure profundity. The dense plants of the tropics made the atmosphere thick with their heavy breath; and the doors no longer being open, the air of this strange wood, enclosed beneath a glass roof, entered the chest with difficulty; intoxicated, caused pleasure and pain, and imparted a confused sensation of enervation, pleasure, and death. The poor woman walked slowly, oppressed by the shadows, amidst which appeared, by the flickering light of her candle, extravagant plants, recalling monsters, living creatures, hideous deformities. All at once she caught sight of the picture of Christ. She opened the door separating her from it, and fell on her knees. She prayed to him, wildly, at first, stammering forth words of true, passionate, and despairing invocations. Then, the ardor of her appeal slackening, she raised her eyes towards him, and was struck with anguish. He resembled Pretty-boy so strongly, in the trembling light of this solitary candle, lighting the picture from below, that it was no longer Christ—it was her lover who was looking at her. They were his eyes, his forehead, the expression of his face, his cold and haughty air.

She stammered: "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!" and the name "George" rose to her lips. All at once she thought that at that very moment, perhaps, George had her daughter. He was alone with her somewhere. He with Susan! She repeated: "Jesus, Jesus!" but she was thinking of them—her daughter and her lover. They were alone in a room, and at night. She saw them. She saw them so plainly that they rose up before her in place of the picture. They were smiling at one another. They were embracing. She rose to go towards them, to take her daughter by the hair and tear her from his clasp. She would seize her by the throat and strangle her, this daughter whom she hated—this daughter who was joining herself to this man. She touched her; her hands encountered the canvas; she was pressing the feet of Christ. She uttered a loud cry and fell on her back. Her candle, overturned, went out.

What took place then? She dreamed for a long time wild, frightful dreams. George and Susan continually passed before her eyes, with Christ blessing their horrible loves. She felt vaguely that she was not in her room. She wished to rise and flee; she could not. A torpor had seized upon her, which fettered her limbs, and only left her mind on the alert, tortured by frightful and fantastic visions, lost in an unhealthy dream—the strange and sometimes fatal dream engendered in human minds by the soporific plants of the tropics, with their strange and oppressive perfumes.

The next morning Madame Walter was found stretched out senseless, almost asphyxiated before "Jesus Walking on the Waters." She was so ill that her life was feared for. She only fully recovered the use of her senses the following day. Then she began to weep. The disappearance of Susan was explained to the servants as due to her being suddenly sent back to the convent. And Monsieur Walter replied to a long letter of Du Roy by granting him his daughter's hand.

Pretty-boy had posted this letter at the moment of leaving Paris, for he had prepared it in advance the evening of his departure. He said in it, in respectful terms, that he had long loved the young girl; that there had never been any agreement between them; but that finding her come freely to him to say, "I wish to be your wife," he considered himself authorized in keeping her, even in hiding her, until he had obtained an answer from her parents, whose legal power had for him less weight than the wish of his betrothed. He demanded that Monsieur Walter should reply, "post restante," a friend being charged to forward the letter to him.

When he had obtained what he wished he brought back Susan to Paris, and sent her on to her parents, abstaining himself from appearing for some little time.

They had spent six days on the banks of the Seine at La Roche-Guyon.

The young girl had never enjoyed herself so much. She had played at pastoral life. As he passed her off as his sister, they lived in a free and chaste intimacy—a kind of loving friendship. He thought it a clever stroke to respect her. On the day after their arrival she had purchased some linen and some country-girl's clothes, and set to work fishing, with a huge straw hat, ornamented with wild flowers, on her head. She thought the country there delightful. There was an old tower and an old chateau, in which beautiful tapestry was shown.

George, dressed in a boating jersey, bought ready-made from a local tradesman, escorted Susan, now on foot along the banks of the river, now in a boat. They kissed at every moment, she in all innocence, and he ready to succumb to temptation. But he was able to restrain himself; and when he said to her, "We will go back to Paris to-morrow; your father has granted me your hand," she murmured simply, "Already? It was so nice being your wife here."