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The Count pulled his hat over his eyes and returned whence he

came, but shortened the way by striding over the vegetables, the

flowers, and the gooseberry bushes, until, vaulting the fence, he

at last breathed freely! He remembered that he had spoken to the

girl of breakfast: so perhaps everybody was already informed of

his meeting with her in the garden, near the house; perhaps they

would send to look for him. Had they noticed his flight? Who

knows what they would think? So he had to go back. Bending down

near the fence, along the boundary strip, and through the weeds,

after a thousand turns he was glad to come out finally on the

highway, which led straight to the yard of the mansion. He walked

along the fence and turned away his head from the garden as a

thief from a corn house, in order to give no sign that he thought

of visiting it, or had already done so. Thus careful was the

Count, though no one was following him; he looked in the opposite

direction from the garden, to the right.