André followed in the second punt. By the same dykes, past the same meadows they returned, struggling against the strong gusts of wind that blew. The storm that had burst had prevented the sheet of ice from covering the water. The farmer, unaccustomed to punting, did not make rapid progress. From time to time he would ask: "You are not too cold, Mathurin?" Then in a louder voice: "Are you following, André?" And in their wake a cheery voice would reply: "I am all right." The strain was tremendous, but with it was mingled the joy of taking back his two sons. Although there was no apparent reason, and he had not thought of her for weeks, the farmer's thoughts flew to his dead wife: "She would be pleased with me," he mused, "for taking Mathurin away from La Seulière." And at times in the turn of a canal he would seem to see a pair of blue eyes like those of his old wife smiling upon him, which gradually sank until they rested among the reeds under the punt. And he would dry his eyelids with his sleeve, shake himself free from the overmastering drowsiness, and say again to his youngest son: "Are you following?" The younger son was not dreaming. He was thinking over what he had seen and heard: Mathurin's senseless infatuation, his violence, which, when their father should be no more, would make life very difficult to the head at La Fromentière. The events of that evening had increased the temptation of pastures new to this disturbed mind. In course of time both punts had reached the duck meadow. CHAPTER XII. ROUSILLE'S LOVE DREAM. Sunday afternoon had become Rousille's hour for solitude. She could only go to vespers when the farm-servant was left in charge of the house; and he had stipulated that he should go once a fortnight to Saint Jean-de-Mont to his sister, a deaf-mute. Mathurin, who formerly had not left La Fromentière, now never missed attending High Mass at Sallertaine, where he met Félicité Gauvrit, greeted her for the most part without speaking, in order not to vex his father, watched her as she moved about the Place, then sat down at one of the inn tables to luette. As for André, he seemed just now to like to be away from La Fromentière as much as possible, and on Sundays would be off as early as he could to the villages on the sea coast, where he sought out old sailors and travellers who could tell him of the countries where fortunes were to be made. Rousille knew nothing of the attraction that led her brother so far afield. One day she affectionately reproached him with leaving her so much alone. At first he had laughed, then suddenly had grown serious and said: "Don't reproach me with leaving you so much alone, Rousille. Perhaps you will reap the benefit of my tramps one of these days; I am acting in your interests."