[Illustration] His left hand clasped hers as it lay on the gate. His right arm stole over the low picket fence and went around the shoulder that leaned against the gate-post. The road was quite empty, the night already dark. He could feel her warm breath on his neck as she laughed. "If you! If I! If what? Why so many ifs in this fine speech? Of whom is the wedding for which this new carriage is to be bought? Do you know what Raoul Vaillantcœur has said? 'No more wedding in this parish till I have thrown the little Prosper over my shoulder!'" As she said this, laughing, she turned closer to the fence and looked up, so that a curl on her forehead brushed against his cheek. [Illustration: He gripped Prosper by the head.—Page 165.] "_Baptême!_ Who told you he said that?" "I heard him, myself." "Where?" "In the store, two nights ago. But it was not for the first time. He said it when we came from the church together, it will be four weeks to-morrow." "What did you say to him?" "I told him perhaps he was mistaken. The next wedding might be after the little Prosper had measured the road with the back of the longest man in Abbéville." The laugh had gone out of her voice now. She was speaking eagerly, and her bosom rose and fell with quick breaths. But Prosper's right arm had dropped from her shoulder, and his hand gripped the fence as he straightened up. "'Toinette!" he cried, "that was bravely said. And I could do it. Yes, I know I could do it. But, _mon Dieu_, what shall I say? Three years now, he has pushed me, everyone has pushed me, to fight. And you—but I cannot. I am not capable of that." [Illustration] The girl's hand lay in his as cold and still as a stone. She was silent for a moment, and then asked, coldly, "Why not, Monsieur Leclère?" "Why not? Because of the old friendship. Because he pulled me out of the river long ago. Because I am still his friend. Because now he hates me too much. Because it would be a black fight. Because shame and evil would come of it, whoever won. That is what I am afraid of, 'Toinette!" Her hand slipped suddenly away from his. She stepped back from the gate. "_Tiens!_ You have fear, Monsieur Leclère! Truly? I had not thought of that. It is strange. For so strong a man it is a little stupid. Good-night. I hear my father calling me. Perhaps some one in the store who wants to be served. You must tell me again what you are going to do with the new _quatre-roue_. Good-night!" She was laughing again. But it was a different laughter. Prosper, at the gate, did not think it sounded like the running of a brook over the stones. No, it was more the noise of the dry branches that knock together in the wind. He did not hear the sigh that came as she shut the door of the house, nor see how slowly she walked through the passage into the store. III