“You saw Mademoiselle Nicolette?” Deydier broke in harshly, “where?”
“Just above La Bastide, Mossou Deydier,” the woman replied. “You know where she and Mossou le Comte used to fish when they were children. It was raining hard already and I told her——”
But Deydier was in no mood to listen further. Without any ceremony, or word of excuse, he turned on his heel and strode rapidly down the road, swinging his lanthorn and gripping his stick, leaving Pérone to go or come, or stand still as she pleased.
Moodiness and wrath had suddenly given place to a sickening feeling of anxiety. The rain beat straight into his face as he turned his steps up the valley, keeping close to the river bank, but he did not feel either the wind or the rain: in the dim circle of light which the lanthorn threw before him he seemed to see his little Nicolette, grief-stricken, distraught, beside that pool that would murmur insidious, poisoned words, promises of peace and forgetfulness. And at sight of this spectral vision a cry like that of a wounded beast came from the father’s overburdened heart.
“Not again, my God!” he exclaimed, “not again! I could not bear it! Faith in Thee would go, and I should blaspheme!”
He saw her just as he had pictured her, crouching against the large boulder that sheltered her somewhat against the wind and rain. Just above her head the heavy branches of an old carob tree swayed under the breath of the tramontane: at her feet the waters of the Lèze, widening at this point into a pool, lapped the edge of her skirt and of the shawl which had slipped from her shoulders.
She was not entirely conscious, and the wet on her cheeks did not wholly come from the rain. Jaume Deydier was a big, strong man, he was also a silent one. After one exclamation of heart-broken grief and of horror, he had gathered his little girl in his arms, wrapped his own coat round her, and, holding on to the lanthorn at the same time, he set out for home.
CHAPTER XIII
MAN TO MAN
Jaume Deydier did not say anything to Nicolette that evening. After he had deposited her on her bed and handed her over to Margaï he knew that the child would be well and safe. Sleep and Margaï’s household remedies would help the child’s robust constitution to put up a good fight.
And Nicolette lay all the evening, and half the night, wide-eyed and silent between the sheets; quite quiescent and obedient whenever Margaï brought her something warm to drink. But she would not eat, and when early the next morning Margaï brought her some warm milk, she looked as if she had not slept. She had a little fever during the night, but by the morning this had gone, only her face looked white and pinched, and her eyes looked preternaturally large with great dark rings around them.