"You can see; I'm taking cords. They have left a heap there, that are rotting, without being used by anybody, and as I am always in need of them, I run over and take them." And, indeed, seated on the ground, with a stout pair of scissors in her hand, she was undoing the bits of cord, cutting the knots, when she failed to get them apart. "Doesn't the owner come here any more, then?" inquired the young man. She began laughing. "Oh! since that affair of Louisette," she replied, "there's no fear of the President risking the tip of his nose at La Croix-de-Maufras. I can pick up his cords without fear." He remained silent for a moment, and seemed troubled by the thought of the tragic adventure she alluded to. "And do you believe what Louisette said?" he asked. Ceasing to laugh, she suddenly became violent, and exclaimed: "Louisette never lied, nor did Cabuche. He is my friend." "Perhaps your sweetheart?" suggested Jacques. "He, indeed!" she replied. "No, no; he is my friend. I have no sweetheart, and I don't want one." She raised her powerful head, with its thick yellow mane curling very low on the forehead, and from all her massive, supple body, burst a savage energy of will. Already a legend was growing up about her in the neighbourhood. Stories were related of heroic deeds of salvage: a cart torn with a mighty jerk from before a train; a railway carriage stopped while descending the declivity at Barentin alone, like some furious beast bounding along to encounter an express. Then there was the tale of her adventure with a pointsman at the Dieppe embranchment, at the other end of the tunnel, a certain Ozil, a man about thirty, whom she seemed to have encouraged for a short time, but who having been so ill-advised as to attempt to take a liberty, had almost met his death from a blow she dealt him with a club. Virgin and warlike, she disdained the male, which finally convinced people that she certainly had something wrong with her head. Jacques, hearing her declare that she did not want a sweetheart, continued his fun: "Then your marriage with Ozil can't be in a good way? Yet I've heard it said that you run to meet him every day through the tunnel." She shrugged her shoulders. "Ah! To Jericho, my marriage!" she retorted. "What you say about the tunnel makes me laugh. Two miles to gallop over in the darkness, with the thought that you may get cut in two by a train if you don't keep your eyes open. You should hear them snorting in there! But Ozil worried me. He's not the one I want." "Then you want someone else?" "Ah! I don't know. Ah! faith, no!" She had burst into a laugh again, while a slight embarrassment made her give her attention to a knot in the cords which she could not manage to undo. Then, without raising her head, as if very much absorbed by her occupation, she said: "And you, have you no sweetheart?"