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156 ever-scrupulous world insists before accepting a piece of gossip as fact. As for Mme. Duval, she was in a desperate plight. Pressed with questions, she was reluctantly compelled to admit that she knew nothing.

After the first fortnight, Gilberte, who dared not walk in her garden, ventured to go out once or twice, but only at times and in directions where she ran no risk of meeting people. Generally in the early morning, she would slip out by a side-door and make her way down to the river by the most shady and roundabout paths of the wood skirting the Logis.

Her almost daily destination was the little chapel of Notre-Dame-sur-l'Eau. It was here that she had had her last interview with Guillaume. It was a peaceful spot, where she loved to dream. One day, when she was coming back by a rambling way, she passed the house which was once tenanted by those Despriols who had brought about M. and Mme. de la Vaudrayes' ruin. The