“Oh!” said Adeline, “I don’t need to see it now, to realize my mistake. But what can you expect? his strange position--for women are timid, you know, and that face with moustaches, appearing all alone at the end of the garden----” “Oh, yes! that’s so,” rejoined Guillot; “it ain’t surprising, and I think that I’d have been afraid myself; because the surprise, behind the gate, and moustaches, in a garden--a body can’t help himself.” “Hold your tongue, my man! You’re a coward! Ain’t it a shame, cousin?” “Ten thousand bayonets!” said Sans-Souci; “if robbers attacked the farm house, I promise you that I would make ’em turn to the right about and march!” “Is your husband still at Villeneuve-Saint-Georges?” asked Jacques of Adeline, after a moment’s silence. “No, he has been in Paris for a long while.” The young woman seemed so sad after she had said this that Jacques regretted his question. The more he looked at his brother’s wife, the more he felt drawn toward her and disposed to love her; he did not doubt that Edouard had said nothing of his meeting with him. “She would not have turned me away,” he said to himself; “with such gentleness in the features and the voice, a person cannot have a hard and unfeeling heart. Edouard alone is guilty. But I will not tell her; I should distress her to no purpose; and, besides, I have no intention of going near the ingrate who spurned me.” It was growing dark; Adeline could not remain at the farm; everyone offered to escort her, but she selected Jacques, to show him that she harbored no unpleasant memories against him. He was secretly flattered by the preference. He took little Ermance on one arm and offered the other to the young woman, who bade the people at the farm adieu, and, delighted by their cordial welcome, promised to go again to see them. They walked in silence at first. From time to time Jacques embraced pretty Ermance, who was only eight months old, but who smiled at the honest soldier, and passed her little hand over his moustaches. “I am very sorry to give you so much trouble,” said Adeline, “but I did not think that I had gone so far.” “Madame, it is a pleasure to me.” “That child must tire you.” “Tire me! No! ten thousand cannons!--Ah! I beg pardon; one should not swear before ladies.” “It is very excusable in an old soldier.” “You see, I am very fond of children; and this little one is really so pretty.” “Ah me! she is my only consolation!” murmured Adeline. Jacques could not hear, but he saw that she was sad, and he changed the subject. “Madame will soon return to Paris, no doubt; it is late in the season, October is almost here.” “No, I do not expect to leave the country yet; I may pass the winter here.” “This is strange,” thought Jacques; “she remains in the country and her husband in the city; can it be that they do not live happily together?--In that case,” he said aloud, “I hope that we shall have the pleasure of seeing madame at the farm sometimes.”