When Monsieur and Madame Sechard had bought La Verberie, a fine house built of stone, and roofed with slate, the pleasure-grounds consisted of a garden of two acres.  In the course of time, by devoting her savings to the purpose, handsome Madame Sechard had extended her garden as far as a brook, by cutting down the vines on some ground she purchased, and replacing them with grass plots and clumps of shrubbery.  At the present time the house, surrounded by a park of about twenty acres, and enclosed by walls, was considered the most imposing place in the neighborhood.

Old Sechard’s former residence, with the outhouses attached, was now used as the dwelling-house for the manager of about twenty acres of vineyard left by him, of five farmsteads, bringing in about six thousand francs a year, and ten acres of meadow land lying on the further side of the stream, exactly opposite the little park; indeed, Madame Sechard hoped to include them in it the next year.  La Verberie was already spoken of in the neighborhood as a chateau, and Eve Sechard was known as the Lady of Marsac.  Lucien, while flattering her vanity, had only followed the example of the peasants and vine-dressers.  Courtois, the owner of the mill, very picturesquely situated a few hundred yards from the meadows of La Verberie, was in treaty, it was said, with Madame Sechard for the sale of his property; and this acquisition would give the finishing touch to the estate and the rank of a “place” in the department.

Madame Sechard, who did a great deal of good, with as much judgment as generosity, was equally esteemed and loved.  Her beauty, now really splendid, was at the height of its bloom.  She was about six-and-twenty, but had preserved all the freshness of youth from living in the tranquillity and abundance of a country life.  Still much in love with her husband, she respected him as a clever man, who was modest enough to renounce the display of fame; in short, to complete her portrait, it is enough to say that in her whole existence she had never felt a throb of her heart that was not inspired by her husband or her children.

The tax paid to grief by this happy household was, as may be supposed, the deep anxiety caused by Lucien’s career, in which Eve Sechard suspected mysteries, which she dreaded all the more because, during his last visit, Lucien roughly cut short all his sister’s questions by saying that an ambitious man owed no account of his proceedings to any one but himself.

In six years Lucien had seen his sister but three times, and had not written her more than six letters.  His first visit to La Verberie had been on the occasion of his mother’s death; and his last had been paid with a view to asking the favor of the lie which was so necessary to his advancement.  This gave rise to a very serious scene between Monsieur and Madame Sechard and their brother, and left their happy and respected life troubled by the most terrible suspicions.