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This explained the scattering of the family: the mother over yonder with her maid; the grandfather in Paris, where he had resumed his great building enterprises, battling amid his four hundred workmen, and crushing the idle and the incapable beneath his contempt; and the father in exile at La Richaudiere, set to watch over his son and daughter, shut up there, after the very first struggle, as if it had broken him down for life.
And Dubuche went off towards La Richaudiere, whilst Claude watched his figure dwindle as he crossed the cultivated plain, until nothing remained but the shiny silk of his hat and the black spot of his coat. The young man returned home slowly, his heart bursting with nameless sadness. However, he said nothing about this meeting to Christine.
His friend Dubuche was going to marry Mademoiselle Regine Margaillan, the daughter of the owner of La Richaudiere. It was an intricate story, the details of which surprised and amused him exceedingly.
A couple of hundred steps further on, as he and Christine emerged from the lane and found themselves in front of a large estate, where a big white building stood, girt with fine trees, they learnt from an old peasant woman that La Richaudiere, as it was called, had belonged to the Margaillans for three years past.
Suddenly he stopped in the middle of the path. The elder hedges were leading to an open plain, and La Richaudiere appeared amid its lofty trees. 'Hold hard! of course, exclaimed Claude, 'I hadn't thought about it you're going to that shanty. Oh! the baboons; there's a lot of ugly mugs, if you like! Dubuche, looking vexed at this outburst of artistic feeling, protested stiffly.
Shortly after this meeting, and towards the middle of August, Sandoz devised a real excursion which would take up a whole day. He had met Dubuche Dubuche, careworn and mournful, who had shown himself plaintive and affectionate, raking up the past and inviting his two old chums to lunch at La Richaudiere, where he should be alone with his two children for another fortnight.
In a moment of effusion Dubuche had even let Sandoz understand that as his wife was so extremely delicate he now lived with her merely on friendly terms. 'A nice marriage, said Sandoz, simply, by way of conclusion. It was ten o'clock when the two friends rang at the iron gate of La Richaudiere. The estate, with which they were not acquainted, amazed them.
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