Germain did not answer. His head dropped into his hands, and little Marie could not tell whether he wept or sulked or was fast asleep. She felt uneasy when she saw him so cast down, and could not guess what was passing in his mind. But she dared not speak to him more, and as she was too astonished at what had passed to have any desire to sleep, she waited impatiently for dawn, tending the fire with care and watching over the child, whose existence Germain appeared to forget. Yet Germain was not asleep. He did not mope over his lot. He made no plans to encourage himself, nor schemes to entrap the girl. He suffered; he felt a great weight of grief at his heart. He wished that he were dead. The world seemed to turn against him, and if he could have wept at all, his tears would have come in floods. But mingled with his sorrow there was a feeling of anger against himself, and he felt choked, without the power or the wish to complain. When morning came, and the sounds of the country brought it to Germain’s senses, he lifted his head from his hands and rose. He saw that little Marie had slept no more than he, but he knew no words in which to tell her of his anxiety. He was very discouraged. Hiding the gray’s saddle once more in the thicket, he slung his sack over his shoulder and took his son by the hand. “Now, Marie,” said he, “we are going to try to end our journey. Do you wish me to take you to Ormeaux?” “Let us leave the woods together,” answered she, “and when we know where we are, we shall separate, and go our different ways.” Germain did not answer. He felt hurt that the girl did not ask him to take her as far as Ormeaux, and he did not notice that he had asked her in a tone well fitted to provoke a refusal. After a few hundred steps, they met a wood-cutter, who pointed out the highroad, and told them that when they had crossed the plain, one must turn to the right, the other to the left, to gain their different destinations, which were so near together that the houses of Fourche were in plain sight from the farm of Ormeaux, and _vice versa_. When they had thanked him and passed on, the wood-cutter called them back to ask whether they had not lost a horse. “Yes,” he said, “I found a pretty gray mare in my yard, where perhaps a wolf had driven her to seek refuge; my dogs barked the whole night long, and at daybreak I saw the mare under my shed. She is there now. Come along with me, and if you recognize her, you may take her.” When Germain had given a description of the gray, and felt convinced that it was really she, he started back to find his saddle. Little Marie offered to take his child to Ormeaux, whither he might go to get him after he had introduced himself at Fourche. “He is rather dirty after the night that we have passed,” said she. “I will brush his clothes, wash his pretty face, and comb his hair, and when he looks neat and clean, you can present him to your new family.”