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 cept refuge; he wanted nothing. All that he wanted was to hide in her and to make her feel his love. And nothing in her life had ever hurt like this love and its helpless pity.

She had come this morning to find Marthe. She was determined before they left Buissac to wrest some form of recantation from Madame de Lamouderie; but first she must see Marthe, and she went early to the Manoir to be sure of finding her.

And at the door Joseph told her that Mademoiselle had gone out.

'Gone out?' said Jill. Standing there, looking at Joseph, she knew that he shared her sense of something strange and wrong in this unaccustomed absence. It was in the morning that Marthe had her harp, and all her household tasks.

'Mademoiselle had a bad night,' he volunteered. 'She did not sleep. She has gone into the woods. Médor is with her; she said that a walk would be good for her and Médor. She will be back at eleven to read to Madame la comtesse.';

If she and Dick were unhappy, so was Marthe.

'I will try to find her,' said Jill.

Joseph led her to the gate in the wall and indicated the way that led upwards through the sycamores. When the sycamores were passed, there was a belt of chestnut forest and then the path ran through lighter woodlands of ash, beech, and hazel that climbed the side of a steep valley. The young green leaves sparkled in the sunlight, and Jill saw, down in the valley cleft,