“I go to the wedding of my niece,” he remarked, with so much satisfaction that, for a moment, Roy really thought he meant it. “Does Monsieur perceive? And Monsieur will be the boy—Joseph—who goes with me in the little cart.” “But where is the little cart?” “All in good time, M’sieu. Now we have for the moment to get rid of these things.” Jean rolled the discarded clothes into a bundle, with which he disappeared out of the cottage for a few minutes. Roy conjectured that he might have buried it in the bushes, or under heaps of black rubbish, abundance of which lay ready to hand. Jean then took Roy into the outhouse, which was more than two-thirds full of heavy logs and faggots of wood—the winter supply—piled together. “Am I to get underneath all that, Jean?” “Oui, M’sieu. The gendarmes will not easily find you there.” “And you too?” “Non, M’sieu. I betake myself to the _soupente_.” The _soupente_ in a French cottage is a kind of upper cupboard, a small corner cut off from the one room, near the ceiling, descending only half-way to the ground, and reached by a ladder. “And if they find you there——” “M’sieu, if they find me, they will not know me—see, in this dress! I am not like the Jean who chopped wood at Bitche. And I hope then to draw their attention from M’sieu! Voyez-vous?” Roy wrung his hand. “I don’t know what makes you so good to me,” the boy said huskily. “I—I don’t think it’s fair upon you, though. And—I can’t think why!” “It is not difficult to tell M’sieu why!” Jean looked abstractedly at the roof of the wood-hut. “It is for the sake of my mother—for the sake of that kind Monsieur le Capitaine, who would not leave her unhappy. Does M’sieu remember—how Monsieur le Capitaine regarded my mother that day?” Roy remembered—and understood. “Now, Monsieur! We may not lose time. The light grows fast.” Jean pulled down and hauled aside logs and masses of wood, making a kind of little cave or hollow far back, where Roy could creep in and lie close to the wall. Jean wrapped round him an old coat, for warmth; and then, when he had laid himself down, threw light black rubbish over him as an additional security, before carefully heaping up anew the logs and faggots, till not the faintest sign remained of any human being beneath. Jean did his utmost to deface all tokens that the wood-pile had been disturbed. “M’sieu must lie still,” he said. “On no account must M’sieu move or speak. If by chance I should have to go away, M’sieu must wait till nightfall, when the cart will come to take M’sieu elsewhere.” “But I say, Jean—you must not get into trouble for me,” called Roy, his voice sounding far and muffled. “Bien, M’sieu. Trust Jean to do his best. Can M’sieu breathe easily?” “Rather stuffy, but it’s all right.” “Au revoir, M’sieu. I go to the _soupente_. M’sieu will remain in the _bûcher_, till I or my friend come again.”