Page:The Eyes of Innocence.djvu/102

98 grateful to his mother for all the sacrifices she has made for him!"

The discord between Mme. de la Vaudraye and Guillaume was Gilberte's greatest grief. Her love of harmony prompted her to make continual endeavours at reconciliation which were bound to fail as much because of the mother's arid artificiality as of the son's stubbornness and reserve.

She had to give up the attempt.

But she suffered another pain, arising from her extreme sensitiveness: at the close of day, she could no longer go to the ruined summer-house without a certain sense of discomfort. Her unknown friend was faithful to the daily tryst which they had made with their dreams; and, though Gilberte herself never failed to keep it, she felt as though she had done him some wrong. With her eyes fixed on the distant mountains melting into the deep blue of the heavens, she let herself drift into vague reveries, far, very far away from the homely valley where her first