Nevertheless, as I spoke thus, I fell quite overcome, with my face
hidden in my hands, on a chair that was near the wall far from hers. I
remained there without speaking a word. "Let us begone," she said; "I
am cold; this place is not good for us!" We gave some money to the good
woman, and we returned slowly to Chambery.
The next day Julie was to start for Lyons. In the evening Louis came to
see us at the inn, and I induced him to go with me to spend a few weeks
at my father's house, which was situated on the road from Paris to
Lyons. We then went out together to inquire at the coachmaker's in
Chambery for a light caleche, in which we could follow Julie's carriage
as far as the town where we were to separate. We soon found what we
sought.
Before daylight we were off, travelling in silence through the winding
defiles of Savoy, which at Pont-de-Beauvoisin open into the monotonous
and stony plains of Dauphiny. At every stage we got down and went to
the first carriage to inquire about the poor invalid. Alas! every turn
of the carriage-wheel which took her further from that spring of life
which she had found in Savoy seemed to rob her of her bloom, and to
bring back the look of languor and the slow fever which had struck me
as being the beauty of death the first time I saw her.
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