Fleurette broke out into a run. She knew that she could ask for shelter in the widow Tronchet’s cottage and wait there until the soldiers had gone by. Perhaps Adèle would walk home with her after that. Fortunately she could already perceive the light glimmering in one of the tiny windows, and just at the moment Adèle came out of the front door, probably to see for herself what the unusual sounds were about.
She was mightily surprised to see Fleurette come running along.
“They are the same soldiers, Adèle,” Fleurette explained breathlessly, as she followed her foster-sister into the cottage, “who were at Lou Mas this afternoon. Close the door, do, and I’ll tell you all about them.”
The widow Tronchet came out of her kitchen, and looked disapprovingly at Fleurette. She did not like the girl, and discouraged all intercourse between her and Adèle. She was a thrifty, hard-featured, hard-hearted peasant—older than her sister Louise by a couple of years—who had exacted every ounce of work and obedience from Adèle in payment for the shelter of her roof and for her daily bread. She had never forgiven her sister for leaving Adèle on her hands, though the girl had always worked her fingers to the bone, grudgingly no doubt, but diligently, in order to bring additional comfort into the cottage. But it was a poor, ill-furnished cottage, wherein food was none too plentiful, and beds hard, whereas Louise at Lou Mas lived in the lap of luxury; and envy had fostered dislike until it had almost become hatred.
She listened, with a frown on her hard wrinkled face, to Fleurette’s breathless tale of what had happened at the château. It would be the gossip of the village by tomorrow, that the soldiers of the Republic had arrested Monsieur, and that Madame and Mademoiselle had fled no one knew whither.
“Oh, Ma’ame Tronchet,” Fleurette concluded, her fresh voice hoarse with sobs, “dear Ma’ame Tronchet, you don’t think they’re really going to harm Monsieur, do you?”
The widow Tronchet shrugged her shoulders and gave a short, harsh laugh.
“I’m not thinking about it at all one way or the other,” she said dryly. “What difference does it make to us poor people,” she went on, grumbling, while she busied herself about the room, “what happens to all those aristos? They never cared what happened to us.”
For the moment Fleurette could do no more than stare at the widow Tronchet, in horror. Never had she heard anyone say anything so wicked. She was quite ready to defend Monsieur and Madame against any accusation of hard-heartedness, and would have done so at risk of offending the disagreeable, ill-natured old woman, but for the moment her attention, as well as that of Adèle’s, was riveted on the sounds outside. The soldiers had just come round the bend of the road; they were quite close to the cottage already, with the two horsemen walking their mounts in the van.
“They are going on to Serres,” Fleurette whispered. In her heart she was wondering what Bibi was going to do. He was evidently not going to Orange, as he had said he would. Would he spend the night at Lou Mas after all? If he did, was there any danger of Fleurette’s secret leaking out? Of Bibi chéri finding out something about the casket and the precious wallet? Fleurette was still hugging the casket, she could see the widow Tronchet’s hard, steely eyes, gazing curiously at the bulge underneath her shawl, and then at the fullness in her kirtle where the wallet and the moneybag lay hidden in the pockets: Fleurette felt the blood rush up to her cheeks, and then had the mortification of seeing Adèle’s pinched-up little face break into a smile. Of what were those two women thinking? Surely not that she, Fleurette, had been stealing. Their faces were so inscrutable: the older woman’s hard and set, and Adèle’s ratlike and furtive, as if determined to conceal her thoughts.
The next moment they all heard the horsemen go by. Adèle ran to the door and peered out into the night. Over her shoulder she said to Fleurette:
“There’s your father riding with the soldiers. Shall I shout to him and tell him you are here?”
Instinctively Fleurette shook her head, and with that same inscrutable smile still on her face, Adèle deliberately closed the door again.
“They’ve got Monsieur walking between them,” she commented dryly.
“It would have been better,” the widow said acidly to Fleurette, “for Citizen Armand to know that you are here. It won’t be safe for women to be alone on the high road this night, I am thinking.”
Then, as Fleurette remained silent, debating within herself what she had best do, the old woman went on curtly: “The sooner you get home now, my girl, the better. Adèle has got to put in an hour’s work at Citizen Colombe’s up at the village; it is miserable pay enough,” she continued muttering to herself, “and a shame that one girl should have to work so hard, whilst another lives a pampered life of luxury. But anyway,” she concluded abruptly, “I can’t be wasting any lamp-oil on you.”
“No—no—of course not, Ma’ame Tronchet,” Fleurette stammered. But the widow, still muttering under her breath, was paying no more attention to her. She had climbed on to a chair, and reaching up to the lamp that hung from the ceiling, she turned out the light. The room was now in darkness except for the light that came in through
