Poor Catherine! No doubt she had her own reasons for uneasiness; more reasons I fancy than I then guessed.

For she seemed to have lost her voice.

She stammered and made but poor replies; and Madame Claude being deaf and stupid, and we boys too timid after the rebuff we had experienced to fill the gap, the conversation languished.

The Vidame was not for his part the man to put himself out on a hot day.
It was after one of these pauses--not the first but the longest--that I started on finding his eyes fixed on mine.

More, I shivered.