Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 1.djvu/55

Rh dragged themselves heavily along the Alps, and threatened to dissolve in rain; the severe temperature of Switzerland filled the soul with melancholy, while the midland winds prowled among the hills and whistled drearily.

"Do you know, my dear demoiselle," said Scholastique at last, "that our master has kept wholly to himself for some days? Holy Virgin! I see he has not been hungry, for his words have remained in his stomach, and the Devil himself would be adroit to force one out of him!"

"My father has some secret trouble which I cannot even guess," replied Gerande, a sad anxiety betraying itself in her countenance.

"Mademoiselle, do not permit so much sadness to overshadow your heart. You know the singular habits of Master Zacharius. Who can read his secret thoughts in his face? Something annoying has no doubt happened to him, but he will have forgotten it by to-morrow, and will repent having made his daughter anxious."

It was Aubert who spoke thus, glancing at Gerande's lovely eyes. Aubert was the first apprentice whom Master Zacharius had ever admitted to the intimacy of his labors, for he appreciated his intelligence, discretion, and goodness of heart; and this young man had attached himself to Gerande with that mysterious faith which presides over heroic denouements.

Gerande was eighteen years of age. The oval of her face recalled that of the artless Madonnas, whom veneration still displays at the street corners of the antique towns of Brittany. Her eyes betrayed an infinite simplicity. She was beloved as the most delicate realization of a poet's dream. Whilst, night and morning, she read her Latin prayers in her iron-clasped missal, Gerande also discovered a hidden sentiment in Aubert Thun's heart, and comprehended what a profound devotion the young workman had for her. Indeed, the whole world in his eyes was condensed in this old house of the clockmaker, and he passed all his time near the young girl, when, the hours of work over, he left her father's workshop.

Old Scholastique saw all this, but said nothing. Her loquacity exhausted itself in preference on the evils of the times, and the little worries of the household. Nobody tried to stop its course. It was with her as with the