A week later, when the sun again showed itself, and Claude extolled the solitude of the quays round the Isle Saint Louis, Christine consented to take a walk.  They strolled up the Quai de Bourbon and the Quai d’Anjou, pausing at every few steps and growing interested in the various scenes of river life; the dredger whose buckets grated against their chains, the floating wash-house, which resounded with the hubbub of a quarrel, and the steam cranes busy unloading the lighters.  She did not cease to wonder at one thought which came to her.  Was it possible that yonder Quai des Ormes, so full of life across the stream, that this Quai Henri IV., with its broad embankment and lower shore, where bands of children and dogs rolled over in the sand, that this panorama of an active, densely-populated capital was the same accursed scene that had appeared to her for a moment in a gory flash on the night of her arrival?  They went round the point of the island, strolling more leisurely still to enjoy the solitude and tranquillity which the old historic mansions seem to have implanted there.  They watched the water seething between the wooden piles of the Estacade, and returned by way of the Quai de Bethune and the Quai d’Orleans, instinctively drawn closer to each other by the widening of the stream, keeping elbow to elbow at sight of the vast flow, with their eyes fixed on the distant Halle aux Vins and the Jardin des Plantes.  In the pale sky, the cupolas of the public buildings assumed a bluish hue.  When they reached the Pont St. Louis, Claude had to point out Notre-Dame by name, for Christine did not recognise the edifice from the rear, where it looked like a colossal creature crouching down between its flying buttresses, which suggested sprawling paws, while above its long leviathan spine its towers rose like a double head.  Their real find that day, however, was at the western point of the island, that point like the prow of a ship always riding at anchor, afloat between two swift currents, in sight of Paris, but ever unable to get into port.  They went down some very steep steps there, and discovered a solitary bank planted with lofty trees.  It was a charming refuge—­a hermitage in the midst of a crowd.  Paris was rumbling around them, on the quays, on the bridges, while they at the water’s edge tasted the delight of being alone, ignored by the whole world.  From that day forth that bank became a little rustic coign of theirs, a favourite open-air resort, where they took advantage of the sunny hours, when the great heat of the studio, where the red-hot stove kept roaring, oppressed them too much, filling their hands with a fever of which they were afraid.