"The Prefect, there he is--he is going to pass." The farmer, drawn from his work by the women's sudden silence as much as by the child's voice, turned towards the yard where the hop-pickers were listening motionless to the noise of the wheels and the horses coming nearer. He commanded: "Shut the cart-door, Franzele!" He added, muttering: "I will not let him see how it is done here--in my place!" The little girl pushed-to one of the sides of the door, then curious, having stuck her head out again: "Oh, how funny. Well, he cannot say that he saw many people. They have not disturbed themselves much on his account! There are only the German women of course. They are all there near 'la Cigogne.'" "Will you shut that door?" replied the farmer angrily. This time he was obeyed. The second side of the door shut quickly against the first. The twenty persons present heard the noise of the carriage rolling in the silence of the town of Alsheim. There were eyes in all the shadowy corners behind the windows--but no one went outside their doors, and in the gardens the men who were digging the borders seemed so entirely absorbed in their work as to have heard nothing. When the carriage was about fifty yards past the farm, their imaginations were full of what it would be like at the Oberlés' farther on at the other end of the village, and taking up a handful of hop-stalks, the women and girls asked each other curiously what the son of M. Oberlé was going to do--and they looked stealthily towards the barn. He was no longer there. He had risen, that he might not break his word, and having run all the way, and pale in spite of his having run, he arrived at the gate of the kitchen garden at the very moment when the Prefect's carriage, on the other side of the demesne, was passing through the park gates. All the household was ready. Lucienne and Madame Oberlé were seated near the mantelpiece. They did not speak to each other. The factory owner, who had returned from his office half-an-hour ago, had put on the coat he wore to go to Strasburg, and a white waistcoat--with his arms behind his back he watched the carriage coming round the lawn. The programme was carried out according to the plans arranged by him. The official personage who was just entering the grounds was bringing to M. Oberlé the assurance of German favour. For a moment of inflated pride which thrilled him M. Oberlé saw in imagination the palace of the Reichstag. "Monica," he said, turning round as breathless as after a long walk, "has your son returned?" Seated before him in the yellow chair near the fireplace, looking very thin, her features drawn with emotion, Madame Oberlé answered: "He will be here because he said so!" "The fact that he is not here is more certain still. And Count Kassewitz is coming--and Victor? I suppose he is at the steps to show him in, as I told him?" "I suppose so."