V
“Pauline!”
It seemed to Jean that he was awaking again in the hay-loft. Again he heard the distant crackle of musketry.
“Pauline!”
Pauline stirred. At that moment a bird alighted on a sill before one of the holes and disappeared with a whirr of wings. It was a pigeon returning to roost, frightened to discover his house occupied.
The noise awakened Pauline upright. She sat up on the floor of the loft and asked suddenly:
“But did they break in after all?”
“They? Who?” asked Jean, still confused. But he crept to the opening, as he had crept to the other opening in the dawn.
It was close upon sunset now; but he did not mark this. What he marked—and what brought him back to his senses—was the sight of Philomène crossing the empty courtyard with a bucket. It was the same courtyard, though its outbuildings here and there lacked a roof. It was the same Philomène anyhow, with her waddling walk.
“Philomène!”
“Eh? But, the good God deliver us, how?”
“Fetch the ladder here.”
She fetched and planted it. The two children climbed down to her.