The autumn came. Her husband went out shooting. He started in the morning
with his two dogs Medor and Mirza. She remained alone, without grieving,
moreover, at Henry's absence. She was very fond of him, but she did not
miss him. When he returned home, her affection was especially bestowed on
the dogs. She took care of them every evening with a mother's tenderness,
caressed them incessantly, gave them a thousand charming little names
which she had no idea of applying to her husband.

He invariably told her all about his sport. He described the places where
he found partridges, expressed his astonishment at not having caught any
hares in Joseph Ledentu's clever, or else appeared indignant at the
conduct of M. Lechapelier, of Havre, who always went along the edge of
his property to shoot the game that he, Henry de Parville, had started.

She replied: "Yes, indeed! it is not right," thinking of something else
all the while.

The winter came, the Norman winter, cold and rainy. The endless floods of
rain came down tin the slates of the great gabled roof, rising like a
knife blade toward the sky. The roads seemed like rivers of mud, the
country a plain of mud, and no sound could be heard save that of water
falling; no movement could be seen save the whirling flight of crows that
settled down like a cloud on a field and then hurried off again.

About four o'clock, the army of dark, flying creatures came and perched
in the tall beeches at the left of the chateau, emitting deafening cries.
During nearly an hour, they flew from tree top to tree top, seemed to be
fighting, croaked, and made a black disturbance in the gray branches. She
gazed at them each evening with a weight at her heart, so deeply was she
impressed by the lugubrious melancholy of the darkness falling on the