CHAPTER V.
SILENCIEUX SPEAKS So long as the moon held, Antony stole up the wood each night to meet Silencieux--"at the rising of the moon." Sometimes he would lie in a hollow with her head upon his knee, and gaze for an hour at a time, entranced, into her face.

He would feign to himself that she slept, and he would hold his breath lest he should awaken her.

Sometimes he would say in a tender whisper, not loud enough for her to hear:-- "It is cold to-night, Silencieux.

See, my cloak will keep you warm." Once as he did this she heaved a gentle sigh, as though thanking him.
At other times he would place her against the gable of the chalet, so that the moonlight fell upon her, and then he would plunge into the wood and walk its whole length, so that, as he wound his way back through the intervening brakes, her face would come and go, glimmering away off through the leafage, beckoning to him to return.

And once he thought he heard her call his name very softly through the wood.
That may have been an illusion, but it was during these days that he did actually hear her speak for the first time.