She blanched a little and then drew herself up:

"No!" she replied, "Andre does not go out shooting like you; nor does he go off to Chalons as Francois did! Can Mathurin have got up to spy upon us while father was asleep? Oh, do take care of yourself, Jean Nesmy! Listen!"

Seizing the candlestick from the window-sill, she held it out at arm's-length towards the other end of the room, the light s.h.i.+ning on the polished furniture as she moved it.

"You are right, someone is moving about in the bakery," said Jean Nesmy. Now the door was gently pushed from the outer side, and the bolt shaken in its socket. Rousille grew white. But she had brave blood in her veins, and still holding the light as far forward as possible, she noiselessly crossed the room, cautiously slid back the bolt, and flung open the door.

A shadow moving about in the room sprang towards Rousille, and she saw it was Bas-Rouge. "What are you doing here--where do you come from?"

she said.

A rush of air came whistling in from the adjoining room. Had the outer door not been fastened? The girl glanced towards the window, and saw Jean Nesmy still there; then she went into the bakery: the straw baskets, the kneading trough, the ladder reaching to the hayloft, the f.a.ggots for next baking day, all was there; but the door leading into the furthermost room, Andre's, was wide open. Rousille went on, the wind nearly extinguis.h.i.+ng the light which she was obliged to shade with her hand. It blew in unimpeded from the courtyard. Yes, Andre had gone out.... She ran to the bed; it was untouched.... A doubt seized her that, at first, she repelled. She thought of Francois; of Andre's tears that evening--his agitation....

"Oh, my G.o.d," she murmured.

Rapidly she stooped and lowered the candle to see under the bed where Andre kept his boots and shoes; they had gone. She opened his trunk, it was empty. Going back into the bakery, she clambered up into the loft. There to the right, beside a heap of wheat, she ought to find a little black portmanteau he had brought home from Africa. She lifted the candle, the portmanteau was not there.

Everything pointed to the one fact. There was no manner of doubt concerning the misfortune that had befallen them. Terrified, she hastily descended the ladder, and unable to keep the secret, she screamed:

"Father!"

A voice, m.u.f.fled by the intervening walls, replied:

"What is it?"

"Driot has gone!" she cried, as she ran through the rooms. Outside the barred window, her eyes seeking him, she thought she discerned a shadow.

"Farewell, Jean Nesmy," she called, without stopping. "Never come back any more. All is lost to us," and she disappeared into the kitchen, to the door of her father's room.

Toussaint had sprung out of bed, and now came, barefoot, hurriedly b.u.t.toning his work-day clothes over his night-s.h.i.+rt. Startled out of his first sleep, only half understanding the purport of her words, stern of countenance, he came forth into the light shed by his daughter's candle.

"What are you screaming about?" he said. "He cannot be far off."

Then seeing her terrified face he, too, thought of Francois, and trembling, followed her.

They traversed the whole length of the house, and on into Andre's room; there Rousille made way for her father to enter first. He did not go far into the room; he looked at the undisturbed bed, and that sufficed to make him understand.

For a moment he remained motionless, tears blinding him; then, staggering, turned towards the courtyard, on the threshold, clinging to the doorposts for support, he took a long breath, as if to call into the night, but only a stifled, scarce audible sound escaped him:

"My Driot!"

And the n.o.ble old man, struck by the bitter cold, fell backwards in a swoon.

At that instant from the other end of the house Mathurin, swearing, and striking head and crutches against the walls and furniture, came struggling along.

"Lend me a hand, Rousille," he cried, "I must see what is going on!"

Rousille was kneeling beside her father, kissing him amid her tears.

The farm-servant, roused by the noise, came through the yard with a lantern.

CHAPTER XIV.

DWELLERS IN TOWNS.

The farmer soon recovered consciousness. Sitting up, he looked about him, and hearing Mathurin moaning and saying: "He is dead!" answered: "No, my boy, I am all right," then with the aid of the farm-servant he went back to his bed.

At dawn next morning, he started for a tour round the farms to try and learn particulars of his son. It seemed that neither Mathurin nor the man had had the least suspicion of Andre's flight; they had neither seen nor heard the slightest thing.

Thus Toussaint Lumineau went to make inquiries among the old and new friends frequented by Andre during the last few months, sons of farmers, gooseherds, or sailors. For three whole days he scoured the Marais from Saint Gervais to Fromentiere, from Sallertaine to Saint Gilles. Those he asked knew but little, or were unwilling to betray confidence. All agreed in stating that Andre had often talked of making his fortune across the sea where the land was new and fertile.

The best informed went on to say:

"Last Sunday he said good-bye to several of us, myself among the number. He told me he was off to South America, where, for a mere nothing, he would get a farm of seventy-four acres of virgin soil; but I do not remember the name of the place where he was going."

On the evening of the third day, when, having had this information, the farmer returned home, he found the cripple sitting by the fireside.

"Mathurin," he said, "you ought still to have some of those books where countries are sketched out, you know what I mean?"

"Geography books? Yes, there must be some left from old schooldays.

Why?"

"I want to look at America," replied the old man. "It is there that your brother is going they all say."

Dragging himself to the chest, from under the clothes at the bottom the cripple brought forth a handful of school books, which had belonged to one or other of them as boys, and came back with a little elementary atlas, on the cover of which was written in a beginner's large handwriting: "This book belongs to Lumineau Andre, son of Lumineau Toussaint, of La Fromentiere, Commune of Sallertaine, Vendee." The father stroked his hand over the writing, as if to caress it.

"It was his," he said.

Mathurin opened the atlas. It was all to pieces; the maps were rounded at the corners from wear, crumpled or torn, the edges frayed. The cripple's fingers turned the pages gingerly, and stopped at a map covered with ink-blots in which the two Americas, united by their isthmus, in deep orange colour, looked like a pair of huge spectacles.

The two men bent over it. "This is South America," said Mathurin. "And here is the sea."

The farmer pondered for a considerable time over Mathurin's words, endeavouring to harmonise them with the inky map, then shook his head.

"I cannot picture to myself where he is," he said sadly, "but I see that there is sea, and that he is lost to us...."

Mathurin slowly shut his book and said:

"They were both bad sons; they have forsaken you."

The farmer did not seem to have heard him; turning to Rousille, he said gently, far more gently than was his wont: "Rousille, have a cup of coffee ready for me the first thing to-morrow morning. I will go and find out Francois." And accordingly at ten o'clock the next morning, the fourth day after Driot's departure, the farmer of La Fromentiere alighted from the train at the station of La Roche-sur-Yon. The moment he set foot on the platform, he began looking for his son amongst the porters engaged in shutting the carriage doors, or taking the luggage from the van. Taller by a head than most of the pa.s.sengers who were hurrying hither and thither, he would stop every ten paces to follow with his eyes some porter with young, full face like Francois. He wanted to see his son again, but was nervous at meeting him in so public a place. He, clad in his black cloth suit, with blue waistband, his new hat bound with velvet set well at the back of his head, free to come and go at his own time--he, the master of his working and leisure hours, felt a kind of shame at the thought that among that group of paid servants, hustled about by their superiors, clad in a uniform they had no right to exchange for ordinary clothes, was a Lumineau of La Fromentiere.

Not finding Francois on the platform, he was proceeding to a part of the line where carriages were uncoupled, and was watching a gang of men push a loaded truck along with their shoulders, thinking the while, "Why, they are doing the work of our oxen at home," when a voice called out:

"Hey! Where are you going?"

"To find my boy."

"Who is he?"