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Rh the solemn moments of our civilised life. Surely this is typical. Tell me, mademoiselle,' he said, with a rapid change to seriousness, 'what induced you to climb up the hill? Was it an obscure feeling, inherited from our pagan ancestors, which moved you to seek a hill-top? Or was it merely the idea of getting some fresh air, or peradventure a charming view?'

'Neither the one nor the other, monsieur,' she replied as seriously, never taking her eyes off him while he spoke. 'It was because I had been reading Maupassant's Sur l'Eau, which, as without doubt you may know, is an account of a voyage in his little yacht the Bel Ami; and from here, I was told, I could see most of the places which he describes.'

'All the same,' he murmured, looking down, 'it was the hunt for happiness.'

'On the part of Maupassant?' she asked. 'Oh, but yes! Only, after a little, he tires of all the beauty and the solitude which he so desires, and goes back—where do you think? To Monte Carlo!'

'And from thence,' he said, 'to—to—a private lunatic asylum,' he added in English. 'The hunt ended badly.'

At that moment a voice—the voice of a girl—was heard calling a name, and then a sentence, in a language unknown to both the men.