Page:The Mystery of Madeline Le Blanc (1900).djvu/15

Rh The doctor bowed, made an unintelligible answer, and left.

Joseph and Madeline, arm in arm, were walking in the garden.

It was summer, the month of July. The winter had lingered longer than usual, so that it was really only spring. The apple and pear trees had but shed their blossoms, and the flowers were just beginning to peep from their winter's nest. Except the gathering of the people about the Hôtel de Ville, nothing suggested the scenes that were soon to be shifted in Paris. The town, like other small communities, was always quiet enough in its way; even nature here seemed more languid than elsewhere.

Paris was only visited by the young men, for there were, indeed, not many old men left anywhere in France. They had celebrated the beginning of the century for Napoleon. Only a few had come back who had followed the little Corsican in his crusades through Europe. Their tales, and the silent stories of those who never returned, had bred in the hearts of the women a horror for even the name of Paris.