Fleurette could not conceal her disappointment at first; but she was so brave, so resolute; she was for making an immediate start so as to get to Sisteron before dark. Perhaps they would meet horse and cart belonging to some neighbour luckier than poor M’sieu’ Duflos. But Louise, more prudent, saw an opportunity for putting the mad adventure off until the next day. A start in the early morning could then be made, she argued, and horse or no horse, Sisteron might be reached before the sun was low. A good project forsooth. Let Fleurette return with her quietly now to Lou Mas and sleep on it. That was it! sleep on it! If only Fleurette would do that, she, Louise, felt quite sure, that counsels of prudence would prevail.
M. Duflos sagely nodded his head. Sisteron? He could not conjecture why Mam’zelle Fleurette should wish to go to Sisteron. Without an escort! And on foot! What would Citizen Armand say to it, if he knew?
Up to this point, you perceive, not a word about the exciting events that had convulsed Laragne a little over two hours ago. M’sieu’ Duflos watching Fleurette, marvelled how much the girl knew. She on the other hand was longing to ask questions, whilst dreading to lose time in unnecessary gossip. She looked about her at the familiar objects: the pump, the shop fronts, the poste de gendarmerie, on the other side of the square, and in the corner of the Rue Haute where the soldiers must have stood this morning with Amédé, a prisoner amongst them.
Everything for the moment in Laragne appeared calm, not to say commonplace. The women had all gone home to cook the midday dinner; the men were at their work. Every moment she thought that she must see Amédé coming round the corner with his slow swinging step, looking for her! M’sieu’ Duflos and Louise were talking together, not exactly in whispers, but under their breath; the way people talk when the subject is exciting and perhaps awe-inspiring. And suddenly M. Duflos exclaimed with a great, big sigh of compassion:
“If it is not a misery! Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! those poor Colombes!”
His kindly glance turned to Fleurette, and he saw her big blue eyes fixed on him. And as he was a very worthy fellow this M. Duflos, with a daughter of his own, he could not somehow return that glance; there was something in it that reminded him of a young animal in pain. He guessed that she had heard the news about young Colombe, and he knew, as everyone did in Laragne, that Fleurette, over at Lou Mas, and Amédé Colombe were fond of one another, and that they would be tokened as soon as the girl had turned eighteen. This love-romance had been part of the village life ever since the two children had made mud pies together in the market square with the dust of the road and the water from the fountain, and though Armand, over at Lou Mas had become very queer of late, and no one knew anything about the mysterious business which, of recent years, kept him away from home for months on end, everyone remembered the pretty Marseillaise whom nineteen years ago he had brought to Lou Mas as a blushing bride, and no one had forgotten the terrible tragedy of her death when she gave birth to Fleurette. With the kindliness, one might say the indifference, peculiar to the peasant, the neighbours put down Armand’s growing moroseness after that terrible event, and his secretive ways, to grief over the death of his young wife; and then after a while, they ceased to trouble about him at all, and almost forgot him as it were. But Fleurette had grown up among them all, a true child of sunny Dauphiné, in spite of her fair hair and blue eyes. They all loved her because she was so pretty, and though M’sieu’ Colombe, the prosperous grocer of the Rue Haute, might at one time have had more ambitious views for his son, he and Ma’ame Colombe soon fell victims to Fleurette’s charm, her dainty ways, her quaint little airs, as if she were a lady strayed into this remote village from some great city, and, above all, being natives of the South, and children of France, they succumbed to the fascination of her wealth; for there was no doubt that Armand was rich, and no doubt that he had made a declaration both privately to his friend Colombe and officially before the notary at Sisteron, that he would give his only child a dowry of ten thousand livres tournois, the day she married with his consent.
And here was this child now, whom everyone knew and whom everyone loved, turning great, pleading eyes on M’sieu’ Duflos until the worthy fellow felt so uncomfortable that he had to clear his throat very noisily and to expectorate on the sanded floor of his shop with a sound like the falling of a shower of hailstones on a tiled roof. He thought that Fleurette knew all the details of this morning’s dramatic story.
“Voyons, Mam’zelle Fleurette,” he said with a rough attempt at consolation. “They won’t do anything to Amédé. Really. The boy meant no harm.”
All then would have been well if that fool Aristide Sicard, who was M’sieu’ Duflos errand man, had not put in a word.
“No one,” he said, “is going to believe that Amédé Colombe is a thief.”
“A thief?” and Fleurette gave a funny little gasp. “Why should they think that Amédé is a thief?”
M’sieu’ Duflos, the butcher, had given his errand-man a vigorous kick, but the correction came too late. And now Fleurette wanted to know more.
“What is your meaning, M’sieu’ Aristide?” she insisted with that funny little air of determination of hers, whilst a frown appeared between her brows. As M’sieu’ Duflos explained to the neighbours afterwards, Fleurette looked as if she might be capable of anything at the moment. He
