The low structure could now be seen; it was painted pink, and the walls were almost hidden under the leaves and branches of the olive-trees that grew in the open field. A tall woman was passing in and out of the door, setting a small table at which she placed, at each trip, a knife and fork, a glass, a plate, a napkin, and a piece of bread. She wore the small cap of the women of Arles, a pointed cone of silk or black velvet, decorated with a white rosette. When the abbé was near enough to make himself heard, he shouted: "Eh! Marguerite!" She stopped to ascertain whence the voice came, and recognizing her master: "Oh! it's you, Monsieur le Curé!" "Yes. I have caught some fine fish, and want you to broil this sunfish immediately, do you hear?" The servant examined, with a critical and approving glance, the fish that the sailor carried. "Yes, but we are going to have a chicken for dinner," she said. "Well, it cannot be helped. To-morrow the fish will not be as fresh as it is now. I mean to enjoy a little feast--it does not happen often--and the sin is not great." The woman picked out a sunfish and prepared to go into the house. "Ah!" she said, "a man came to see you three times while you were out, Monsieur le Curé." Indifferently he inquired: "A man! What kind of man?" "Why, a man whose appearance was not in his favor." "What! a beggar?" "Perhaps--I don't know. But I think he is more of a 'maoufatan.'" The abbé smiled at this word, which, in the language of Provence means a highwayman, a tramp, for he was well aware of Marguerite's timidity, and knew that every day and especially every night she fancied they would be murdered. He handed a few sous to the sailor, who departed. And just as he was saying: "I am going to wash my hands,"--for his past dainty habits still clung to him,--Marguerite called to him from the kitchen where she was scraping the fish with a knife, thereby detaching its blood-stained, silvery scales: "There he comes!" The abbé looked down the road and saw a man coming slowly toward the house; he seemed poorly dressed, indeed, so far as he could distinguish. He could not help smiling at his servant's anxiety, and thought, while he waited for the stranger: "I think, after all, she is right; he does look like a 'maoufatan.'" The man walked slowly, with his eyes on the priest and his hands buried deep in his pockets. He was young and wore a full, blond beard; strands of curly hair escaped from his soft felt hat, which was so dirty and battered that it was impossible to imagine its former color and appearance. He was clothed in a long, dark overcoat, from which emerged the frayed edge of his trousers; on his feet were bathing shoes that deadened his steps, giving him the stealthy walk of a sneak thief.