"'An old beggar, whom I do not know, and she looks like a witch,' said he; 'but she was perishing with cold, hunger and fatigue. She came begging; I told her to come in, and gave her a piece of bread, which she eat while she warmed herself, and now she has gone to sleep.'
"The figure moved slightly in its corner.
"'What has happened to you, Monsieur le Marquis,' asked the farmer's wife, 'that you are so wet, and that your clothes are splashed with mud up to the shoulder?'
"'You nearly had to dine without me, my good Martine,' I replied, 'although this repast and this fire were prepared for me.'——"'Truly!' cried the good woman, alarmed.
"'Ah! monsieur had a narrow escape!' said the farmer.
"'How so, my good lord?'
"'You know your marshes are full of bogs; I ventured without sounding the ground, and all at once I felt that I was sinking in; so that, had it not been for my gun, which I held across, enabling your husband to come and pull me out, I should have been smothered, which is not only a cruel but a stupid death.'
"'Oh, monsieur,' said the wife, 'pray do not expose yourself in this way!'
"'Let him alone,' said the sepulchral voice of the figure crouched in the chimney-corner; 'he will not die thus; I foretell that.'
"And, lowering the hood of her gray cloak, she showed me the face of that woman who had twice crossed my path with sad prediction.