Madame Chalice was tempted to go and speak to her, and started to do so, but turned back.
"No, no, not until we know the worst of this illness--then!" she said to herself.
But ten minutes later De la Riviere was not so kind.

He had guessed a little at Elise's secret, and as he passed the house on the way to visit Madame Chalice, seeing the girl, he came to the door and said: "How goes it with the distinguished gentleman, Elise?
I hear you are his slave." The girl turned a little pale.

She was passing a hot iron over some coarse sheets, and, pausing, she looked steadily at him and replied: "It is not far to Dalgrothe Mountain, monsieur." "The journey's too long for me; I haven't your hot young blood," he said suggestively.
"It was not so long a dozen years ago, monsieur." De la Riviere flushed to his hair.

That memory was a hateful chapter in his life--a boyish folly, which involved the miller's wife.

He had buried it, the village had forgotten it,--such of it as knew,--and the remembrance of it stung him.