This was the moment when she really would have screamed. The sense of something ununderstandable and unreal was more than she could bear, she would have screamed, but those twinkling, searching eyes held her, and at the same time seemed to reassure her, to tell her not to be afraid. She felt as if she were in a dream: unable to do anything, only to stare and stare at the old faggot-carrier, while gradually all her terrors seemed to fall away from her, and she was filled with a sense of courage and of determination. The whole incident, the voice, the glance, her terror and reassurance had lasted less than five seconds. Already Adèle was close by. She was bringing the bread for the poor, half-starved man, and Fleurette now watched him, fascinated, as he took the bread with a humble: “Merci, Mam’zelle,” and started at once on it, like a man who has not tasted food all day. He was just a decrepit old man, bent with rheumatism, dirty, unkempt, insecure on his tottering limbs. He even raised his eyes once, and once more looked at her; but the glance was dim like that of an old man; there was no twinkle in the eyes, only the weariness of poverty and old age.
And Fleurette felt that she had dreamed it all: the voice, the glance, the message from St. Antoine, just as her terrors had faded from her, so now her excitement vanished too. It must all have been a dream. It was a dream! Perhaps old Louise, who was versed in all kinds of dreamlore, would know of an explanation for the whole mysterious occurrence. Feeling very tired all of a sudden—for she felt the reaction after the tenseness of the last few moments, she went back into the house. In the doorway she turned to have a last look at the old faggot-carrier; leaning heavily upon his stick, he was making his way along the bank of the stream. The last she saw of him was his big bundle done up in sacking and his legs bending beneath the weight.
Adèle wrapped in her shawl had gone the other way. She was already up on the bridge. With a little sigh of disappointment Fleurette went into the house. It had been such an exciting dream!
But she did not speak about it to old Louise; she just went quietly about the house, doing one or two little bits of work that Adèle had left undone.
The slowly sinking sun had turned the gold on Pelvoux’ snowy crest to a brilliant rose, when Fleurette suddenly announced to Louise that she was going over to the château. She often went there, and at all hours of the day.
“So long as you are home before dark,” was Louise’s only remark. “I don’t like those down-at-heel soldiers being about.”
Fleurette promised that she would not be late. She picked up her beautiful new shawl and wrapped it round her shoulders. The château was not far; over by the mountain track, it was not more than a quarter of a league at most. Swiftly Fleurette ran out of the house and then along the edge of the stream—the same way that the old faggot-carrier had gone an hour or so ago.
And now the mantle of twilight was falling over the valley; the jade-coloured sky held myriads of tiny, fleecy clouds of a brilliant glowing crimson, which one by one faded into grey, alone the snow of Pelvoux reflected the glory of the sinking sun, and in the old walnut-tree the thrush’s song was stilled.
VI
The place was always called le château for want of a more appropriate name. As a matter of fact it was just a large, rumbling, roomy farmhouse with stables and stable-yards and sheds and outbuildings, all built in a mass and at different times as necessity demanded, in the midst of a really fine park, shady with century old trees and fragrant with acacias and roses. Here for many generations the de Frontenacs, father and son, had lived, toiled and died, farming their land, honouring their King and otherwise not troubling their heads over much with politics or with art or literature. They were good, kindly, honest folk, all of them, and if the light of their intellect burned somewhat dim, that of their charity was always kept fed and bright.
They belonged to that sturdy stock which had given France one of her most valiant sons in Louis de Frontenac, the man who had made Eastern Canada a jewel worthy of the crown of France. The jewel had been lost since then, irretrievably lost to the English, and the crown of France been dragged in the mire of a bloody revolution, its glory forever overshadowed by the unforgivable crime of a purposeless regicide: but the present holder of the ancient name and owner of the lands had kept himself aloof from the awful dissensions that raged in the big cities; he had remained in his heart loyal to his martyred King, and though shorn of most of his wealth, deprived of a great deal of his inheritance, perpetually threatened with confiscation or attainder, he continued to lead the simple life, hoping for better things, detached as far as he was able from the turmoil that was ruining his country and shaming her in the eyes of the world.
At all seasons of the year, and in all weathers, he could be seen out on his farm, directing the work in fields or stables,
