Towards four o'clock, the number of spectators had diminished; tethered horses had been taken from under sheltering trees; vehicles of all kinds and descriptions were on the homeward way to town and outskirts. Mathurin had not left his nook under the shade of the fir-trees. An uneasy suspicion was agitating him violently. Twice, at some distance in the direction of the offices, he had thought to recognise the eager face of Jean Nesmy. The young man, clad in brown, his hat drawn over his eyes, who only stealthily advanced, but who had been seen by Mathurin now here, now there in the copse on the other side of the lawn, could be no other than the dismissed farm-servant, Rousille's lover. Mathurin sat and waited for his father, to whom he had despatched a village lad, telling him of the approaching close of the sale. In the bluish mist, to right of the Château, Farmer Lumineau appeared, and with him Marie-Rose. Despite the growing dusk, both were somewhat shamefaced. Rousille did not go far, at a hundred paces from the front of the Château she stopped, and sitting on the bench of _la Marquise_, looked on with startled eyes at the scene of devastation, while her father went up closer to make his purchase. Among the two hundred people still grouped round the granite steps, women predominated. They had stayed to see the "wearing apparel and toilet appurtenances," given out by the notary as being the next lot. And now the auctioneer lifted above his head a soft, clinging, pale violet material, that unfolded and fluttered in the wind. "A young lady's dress of mauve silk with muslin collarette--ten francs!" he called. "Show it!" cried the women's voices. And Rousille saw the object lowered on to the stone steps, the little silken gown left behind, forgotten, that still retained something of the supple grace of its wearer, Mademoiselle Ambroisine de la Fromentière. And coarse words and low jests reached her, made by the brokers as they handled the dainty relics of refinement and purity. "Can they put up that for sale!" she murmured; she shrank from the profanation, and would gladly have gone away. But at that moment two sudden emotions, two surprises nailed her to her seat. Across the lawn, facing her, in front of a group of fir-trees, she had seen Mathurin, who had left the protection of the branches, and was looking over at the bench of _la Marquise_, shaking his fist; while, quite close behind her, she heard a voice from out the flowering laurels, say: "My Rousille, Jean Nesmy has come!" With perfect self-control she did not turn her head, made no movement; feeling herself to be spied upon, she had all the courage of her ancestors whom peril had ever found ready. Scarce opening her lips as if only breathing to calm her beating heart, she said to him who had rustled the leaves behind her: "Beware! Mathurin is watching us." "I know, he has already seen me." "Then, go quickly! Come back later." "When?"