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“But no, Monsieur, truly. This place–bah! we are here imbeciles all to the great world, without doubt; but Camille!– he was by nature of those who make the history of cities–a rose in the wilderness. Monsieur smiles?”

“By no means. A scholar, Madame?”

“A scholar of nature, Monsieur; a dreamer of dreams such as they become who walk much with the spirits on the lonely mountains.”

“Torrents, and avalanches, and the good material forces of nature, Madame means.”

“Ah! Monsieur may talk, but he knows. He has heard the foehn sweep down from the hills and spin the great stones off the house-roofs. And one may look and see nothing, yet the stones go. It is the wind that runs before the avalanche that snaps the pine trees; and the wind is the spirit that calls down the great snow-slips.”

“But how may Madame who sees nothing; know then a spirit to be abroad?”

“My faith; one may know one’s foot is on the wild mint without shifting one’s sole to look.”

“Madame will pardon me. No doubt also one may know a spirit by the smell of sulphur?”

“Monsieur is a sceptic. It comes with the knowledge of cities. There are even such in little Bel-Oiseau, since the evil time when they took to engrossing the contracts of good citizens on the skins of the poor jew-beards that give us flesh and milk. It is horrible as the Tannery of Meudon. In my young days, Monsieur, such agreements were inscribed upon wood.”

“Quite so, Madame, and entirely to the point. Also one may see from whom Camille inherited his wandering propensities. But for his fall–it was always unaccountable?”

“Monsieur, as one trips on the edge of a crevasse and disappears. His soul dropped into the frozen cleft that one cannot fathom.”

“Madame will forgive my curiosity.”

“But surely. There was no dark secret in my Camille’s life. If the little head held pictures beyond the ken of us simple women, the angels painted them of a certainty. Moreover, it is that I willingly recount this grief to the wise friend that may know a solution.”

“At least the little-wise can seek for one.”

“Ah, if Monsieur would only find the remedy!”

“It is in the hands of fate.”

Madame crossed herself.

“Of the Bon Dieu, Monsieur.”

At another time Madame Barbiere said:–

“It was in such a parched summer as this threatens to be that my Camille came home in the mists of the morning possessed. He was often out on the sweet hills all night–that was nothing. It had been a full moon, and the whiteness of it was on his face like leprosy, but his hands were hot with fever. Ah, the dreadful summer! The milk turned sour in the cows’ udders and the tufts of the stone pines on the mountains fell into ashes like Dead Sea fruit. The springs were dried, and the great cascade of Buet fell to half its volume.”

“This cascade; I have never seen it. Is it in the neighbourhood?”

“Of a surety. Monsieur must have passed the rocky ravine that vomits the torrent, on his way hither.”

“I remember. I will explore it. Camille shall be my guide.”

“Never.”

“And why?”

Madame shrugged her plump shoulders.

“Who may say? The ways of the afflicted are not our ways. Only I know that Camille will never drive his flock to pasture near the lip of that dark valley.”

“That is strange. Can the place have associations for him connected with his malady?”

“It is possible. Only the good God knows.”

But I was to know later on, with a little reeling of the reason also.

* * * * *

“Camille, I want to see the Cascade de Buet.”

The hunted eyes of the stricken looked into mine with a piercing glance of fear.

“Monsieur must not,” he said, in a low voice.