“Who told you that I wish to go to Fourche?” answered Germain, petulantly. “Perhaps I shall not go.” “But truly, Germain, it is your duty to go there. You will go there,” replied the girl. “You seem very anxious to have me married off, so that you may be quite sure that I shall not trouble you again?” “Germain, you must not think of that any more. It is an idea which came to you in the night, because this unfortunate mishap took away your spirits. But now you must come to your senses. I promise you to forget everything that you said to me, and not to breathe it to a soul.” “Oh, say what you wish. It is not my custom to deny what I have spoken. What I told you was true and honest, and I shall not blush for it before anybody.” “Yes, but if your wife were to know that just before you came you were thinking of another woman, it would prejudice her against you. So take care how you speak now. Don’t look at me before everybody with such a rapt expression. Think of Father Maurice, who relies on your obedience, and who would be enraged at me if I were to turn you from his will. Good-by, Germain. I take Petit-Pierre in order to force you to go to Fourche. He is a pledge which I keep on your behalf.” “So you want to go with her?” said the husbandman to his son, seeing that the boy had clasped Marie’s hands and was following her resolutely. “Yes, father,” answered the child, who had heard the conversation and understood after his own fashion the words spoken so unguardedly before him. “I am going away with my dearest little Marie. You shall come to find me when you have done marrying, but I wish Marie to be my little mother.” “You see how much he wishes it,” said Germain to the girl. “Listen to me, Petit-Pierre,” he added. “I wish her to be your mother and to stay with you always. It is she who does not wish to. Try to make her grant you what she has denied me.” “Don’t be afraid, father, I shall make her say yes. Little Marie does everything that I wish.” He walked away with the young girl. Germain stood alone, sadder and more irresolute than ever. [Illustration: (Ornament)] XI The Belle of the Village And after all, when he had brushed the dust of travel from his clothes and from his horse’s harness, when he had mounted the gray, and when he had learned the road, he felt that there was no retreat and that he must forget that anxious night as though it had been a dangerous dream. He found Father Leonard seated on a trim bench of spinach-green. The six stone steps leading up to the door showed that the house had a cellar. The walls of the garden and of the hemp-field were plastered with lime and sand. It was a handsome house, and might almost have been mistaken for the dwelling of a bourgeois.