He raised his hat with a natural courtesy that sat well upon him; nor did he seek to detain her longer. Already Rousille, turning her back upon Sallertaine, was running across the meadow; she had reached the last bushes that border the Marais, her cloak fluttering in the mist. For more than a minute after she had disappeared beyond the fence Jean Nesmy remained motionless, on the same spot, where the words she had spoken were still ringing in his ears. Then slowly, as one learning by heart who looks not about him, he took his way towards Sallertaine and on from thence to Chalons. His heart sang with joy as he repeated to himself: "In mid-winter, if our neighbours who frequent your markets tell you that he is working like a true farmer, come back...." The one thing he saw on the road to Chalons was that the topmost leaves of the willows were already turning yellow, and that the branches were growing leafless. Rousille, through a gap in the fence, had made her way into a stubble field, thence through a narrow belt of wood. Then finding that she was in the gravel walk of an avenue, she paused, terrified by the solitude, and seized by the instinctive respect for the seigniorial domain, where even then her people ventured but rarely, from fear of displeasing the Marquis. She was in the outskirts of the park. On all sides, lit by the peaceful light of the moon, were sloping lawns, broken now by groups of forest-trees forming islands of black shade, now disappearing in the blue mist of distance. Sometimes in light, sometimes in shadow, Rousille followed the path, her eyes on the watch, her heart beating wildly. She was seeking marks of footsteps on the gravel; straining to see objects amid the dense thickets. Was that her father over there, that dark form through the wood? No, it was but the pile of a fence overgrown with brambles. Everywhere thorn-bushes, roots, dead branches impeded the moss-grown paths. How neglect had grown with years! The master absent, all was deserted, gone to waste. As she pursued her way, Rousille began to realise more keenly her sorrow at her brother's and sister's flight. They too, perhaps, would never come back to their home; fear in her gave place to grief. Suddenly, the path winding round a clump of cedars, she found herself in front of the Château, with its huge main building flanked by towers and pointed roofs, on which the weather-cocks that once told the direction of the wind were now motionless with rust. Night owls were silently chasing each other round the gables; the windows were shut, the ground-floor secured with shutters strongly battened. Anxious as she was, the young girl could not but stop for a moment to look at the melancholy pile, stained by winter rains, already as grey as any ruin; and as she stood there on the broad carriage-drive, her ear detected a distant murmur of words. "It is father," she thought without a moment's hesitation.