ladies of Chalons turn as he passed, to say to each other: "That is a handsome lad, Lumineau's youngest son!"

The farmer often remained thus, the day's work done, sunk in thought before his farmstead. This time he remained longer than usual in the midst of the swaying masses of leaves, now grown grey, indistinct looking in the gathering darkness like some unfamiliar ground. The trees themselves had become but vague outlines bordering the fields. The large expanse of clear sky overhead, still bright with golden glory, suffered but faint rays to fall to earth, making objects visible but only dimly. Lumineau, putting both hands to his mouth to carry the sound, turned towards the farm, and called out lustily:

"Ohé! Rousille?"

The first to respond to the call was the dog, Bas-Rouge, who, at the sound of his master's voice, flew like an arrow from the far end of the field. Then a young, clear voice was heard in the distance:

"Yes, father, I am coming."

The farmer stooped, took a cord, and bound a huge mass of leaves together, loaded it on his shoulder, and staggering under its weight, with arms raised to steady it, his head buried in the soft burden, followed the furrow, turned, and proceeded down the trodden path. As he reached the corner of the field a girl's slender form rose up before a break in the hedge. With agile movement Rousille cleared the fence; as she alighted her short petticoats revealed a pair of black stockings and sabots turned up at the toes.

"Good evening, father."

He could not refrain from thinking of what the keeper had said, and made no reply.

Marie-Rose, her two hands on her hips, nodding her little head as if meditating something grave, watched him go. Then entering in among the furrows she gathered together the remainder of the fallen leaves, knotted them with the cord she had brought, and, as her father had done, raised the green mass, and though bending beneath the weight, proceeded with light step down the grassy path.

To go into the field, collect, and bind together the leaves must have taken some ten minutes; her father should have reached the farm by now. She neared the fence, when suddenly from the top of the slope, the foot of which she was skirting, came a whistle like that of a plover. She was not frightened. Now a man jumped over the brambles into the field. Rousille threw down her burden. He approached no nearer, and they began to talk in brief sentences.

"Oh, Rousille, what a heavy load you are carrying."

"I am strong enough. Have you seen my father?"

"No, I have only just come. Has he said anything against me?"

"He did not say a word. But he looked at me.... Believe me, Jean, he mistrusts us. You ought not to stay out to-night, for he dislikes poaching and you will be scolded."

"What can it matter to him if I shoot at night, so long as I am as early next morning at my work as anyone else? Do I grumble over my work? Rousille, I was told at La Seulière, and the miller of Moque-Souris told me too, that plovers have been seen on the Marais. It will be full moon to-night, I mean to go out, and you shall have some to-morrow morning."

"Jean," she returned, "you ought not.... I assure you."

The young man was carrying a gun slung across his shoulder; over his brown coat he wore a short blouse scarcely reaching to his waist-belt. He was slim, about the same height as Rousille, dark, sinewy, pale, with regular features, and a small moustache, slightly curled at the corners of the mouth. The complexion alone served to show that he was not a native of the Marais, where the mists soften and tint the skin, but of a district where the soil is poor and chalky, and where small holdings and penury abound. Withal, from his lean, self-possessed countenance, straight-pencilled eyebrows, the fire and vivacity of the eyes, one could discern a fund of indomitable energy, a tenacity of purpose that would yield to no opposition.

Not for an instant did Rousille's fears move him. A little for love of her, but far more for the pleasure of sport and of nocturnal marauding so dear to the heart of primitive man, he had made up his mind to go shooting that night on the Marais. That being the case, nothing would have made him desist, not even the thought of displeasing Marie-Rose.

She looked but a child. Her girlish figure, her fresh young complexion, the full oval of her face, the pure brow with its bands of hair smoothly parted on either side, straight lips, which one never knew were they about to part in a smile or to droop for tears, gave her the appearance of a virgin in some sacred procession wearing a broad band across the shoulders. Her eyes alone were those of a woman, dark chestnut eyes the colour of the hair, wherein lay and shone a tenderness youthful yet grave, noble and enduring.

Without having known it, she had been loved for a long time by her father's farm-servant. For a year now they had been secretly engaged. On Sundays, as she returned from Mass, wearing the flowered muslin coif in the form of a pyramid, the coif of Sallertaine, many a farmer's, or horse and cattle breeder's son, tried to attract her gaze. But she paid no attention to them; had she not betrothed herself to Jean Nesmy, the taciturn stranger, poor and friendless, who had no place, no authority, no friendship save in her young heart? Already she obeyed him. In her home they never spoke to each other. Out-of-doors when they could meet their talk was always hurried on account of her brothers' watchfulness, that of Mathurin especially, the cripple, who was ever jealously prowling about. This time, too, they must avoid being surprised.

Jean Nesmy, therefore, without stopping to consider Rousille's cause for uneasiness, asked abruptly:

"Have you brought everything?"

Without further insistence she gave in.

"Yes," she answered; and producing from her pocket a bottle of wine and slice of coarse bread, she held them out to him with a smile that irradiated her whole face, despite the darkness. "Here, my Jean," she said, "it was not easy; Lionore is always on the watch, and Mathurin follows me about everywhere;" there was melody in her voice, as though she was saying, "I love you."

"When will you be back?" she added.

"At dawn. I shall come by the dwarf orchard."

As he spoke, the youth raising his blouse had opened a linen ration bag, brought back from his military service, and which he wore hung round his neck. In it he stored the wine and bread.

Absorbed in the action, intent on the thing of the moment, he did not notice that Rousille was bending forward listening to a sound from the farm. When he had finished fastening the two buttons of the ration bag, the girl was still listening.

"What am I to answer," she gravely said, "if father asks for you presently? He is now shutting the door of the barn."

With a smile that displayed two rows of teeth white as milk, Jean Nesmy, touching his hat, unadorned and wider than those worn in the Marais, said:

"Good night, Rousille. Tell your father that I am going to be out all night, and hope to bring back some plovers for my little sweetheart!"

He turned, sprang up the slope, jumped down into the neighbouring field, and the next second the barrel of his gun caught the light as it disappeared among the branches.

Rousille still stood before the break in the hedge, her heart had gone forth with the wanderer. Then, for the second time, a noise broke the stillness of evening. Now it was the sound of frightened fowls, the flapping of wings, the noise of a key turning in the lock—the sign that Eléonore, as always before supper, was locking the door of the fowl-house;