Despite their departure, the gathering in the Place grew denser and denser. It was the place of Sunday meeting where for centuries past the dwellers of the marshes, prisoners of the canal-bound land, had been wont to assemble. To them attendance at mass was alike a religious duty and an occasion of social gathering. Before wending their way back to their farms, not a man, even the gravest and most considered among them, would have failed to pass an hour in a wine shop chatting with his friends over a bottle of muscadet and a game of cards, _luette_ particularly, a game imported from Spain in ancient times. Already innkeepers were standing at their doors at the foot of the Place, sounds of merriment and laughter were to be heard from within, and the stock-phrases of _luette_ players, "Your turn." "My turn." "I play a horse." "I take merienne." Meanwhile there was more than ordinary animation among the girls stationed behind the groups of men. They were scanning all the church doors, whence were now issuing good women, tellers of rosaries, who had lingered long over their devotions. "He is coming out," exclaimed tall Aimée Massonneau, the daughter of farmer Glorieux, of Terre-Aymont. "Did you see him, that poor Mathurin Lumineau? He insisted upon coming to mass. I am sure he might have got dispensation!" "Yes," returned the little auburn-haired daughter of Malabrit, "it is six years since he came to Sallertaine." "Six years--really?" "Yes, I remember. It was the year my sister was married." "And why do you think he came?" asked Victoire Guerineau, of La Pinçonnière, a sharp-tongued pretty girl, with a complexion like a wild rose. "For he must have shown some spirit to manage it." "To stand by his father," said a voice; "the old man had been so saddened by the going of Eléonore and François." "To show himself with his brother André," put in another. "He's a good-looking fellow is André Lumineau! I should not mind----" Victoire Guerineau and the others broke into a peal of laughter. "You are quite out of it. It's for Félicité Gauvrit he came!" "Oh, oh!" exclaimed those in front. "How ill-natured you are! If she were to hear you." And several turned towards the Michelonnes' doorstep, near to which, amid a little throng, stood Mathurin's former fiancée. Suddenly a murmur ran through the crowd. "There he is. Poor fellow! How difficult it is for him to walk."