"I am not at all hungry," said Gilberte, who had been for several days past too much distressed and excited not to have lost her appetite; "but to induce you two to eat, I will go through the motions." Monsieur de Boisguilbault sat beside her and waited upon her with great zeal. Jean declared that he was too dirty to sit with them, and, when the marquis insisted, he confessed that he should be very ill at ease in such soft, deep chairs. He took a wooden stool, a relic of the former rustic furniture of the chalet, and, planting himself under the mantel, where he could dry himself from head to foot, began to eat with great zest. His portion was amply sufficient, for Gilberte simply nibbled at the strawberries, and the marquis was a phenomenally small eater. Moreover, even if he had more appetite than usual, he would gladly have stinted himself for the man he had struck two hours earlier, and who had forgiven him so frankly. The peasant eats slowly and in silence. To him it is not the gratification of a capricious and fugitive craving, but a sort of solemn function; for on a working-day the meal hour is at the same time an hour of rest and reflection. Jappeloup became very grave, therefore, as he methodically cut his bread into small pieces and watched the cones blazing on the hearth. Monsieur de Boisguilbault, having gradually exhausted all that one can say to a person one does not know, relapsed into his usual taciturnity, and Gilberte, overdone by several nights of sleeplessness and weeping, felt an insurmountable drowsiness creep over her, the effect of the heat from the fire following the cold and dampness of the storm. She fought against it as long as she could, but the poor child was little more accustomed than her friend the carpenter to luxurious arm-chairs, fur rugs and candle-light. As she tried to smile and to answer the more and more infrequent remarks of the marquis, she felt as if she were magnetized; her lovely head gradually sank on the back of the chair, her pretty foot slipped nearer to the fire, and her strong, regular breathing suddenly betrayed the victory of sleep over her will-power. Monsieur de Boisguilbault, seeing that the carpenter was lost in thought, began to scrutinize Gilberte's features more closely than he had as yet dared to do, and a sort of shudder passed over him when he saw, beneath the black lace which had partly fallen from her head, the luxuriant dazzling masses of golden hair. But he was roused from his contemplation by the carpenter, who said to him in an undertone: "Monsieur de Boisguilbault, I'll bet that you haven't a suspicion of what I am going to tell you. Look carefully at this pretty little lady, and then I will tell you who she is." Monsieur de Boisguilbault turned pale and gazed at the carpenter with a dismayed expression. XXXI UNCERTAINTY