“Upon my honor, Madame——”
Firmin for several years had served as valet to a Parisian gentleman, and he once had heard his master speak thus to a great lady. So thinking to please Catherine he made use of the high-sounding phrase, adding sotto voce in her ear: “Meet me to-morrow at three o’clock at Bemacle’s Cross, chère madame,” and without waiting for her reply he passed on ahead with rapid step.
Catherine shrugged her shoulders. A feeling of indignation took possession of her. She redoubled her pace and proceeded home. Since the day when Savin humiliated her before the peasants she had been enraged and miserable. “On my knees,” she would repeat a dozen times a day, “he compelled me to ask pardon. On my knees!” And through her brain all sorts of schemes of vengeance were flitting. With all the force of her darker nature she had begun to hate the valiant soldier whose generosity she should have recognized and reciprocated. Haunted by the idea that ever since that memorable day people had distrusted her, she felt able less and less to strive against the evil spirit to which she had fallen a prey.
On every side as she walked homeward an extraordinary confusion reigned. Many were engaged in a search after the missing cattle. The men taunted each other and quarrelled, and more than one peasant, after searching in vain for his cow, ox, or bull, took the one nearest him and declared without hesitation that it belonged to him. Nobody can be more ferocious than the peasant who loses his worldly goods, and in the present instance more than fifty had been dispossessed.
Fadard stood leaning against the wall in the bar-room of the inn when Andoche entered. His face had been rendered hideous by a large gash—the result of a blow from a bottle. Night was approaching. The sun, in a flood of glowing crimson and amber, was sinking beyond the world’s west. The leaves of the tall poplars were gently soughing as the twilight breeze, prodigal with caresses, wooed them into soothing accents. Still the wrathy peasants haggled and disputed the claims of possession as the animals slowly and with great difficulty were recaptured. No one claimed the dead cattle. The controversy was alone confined to the living. The sun in a final burst of glory flashed a brilliant farewell to this section of the earth as Madame Barrau, excited to hatred and anger and imagining all kinds and degrees of troubles to be hers, went on her way with downcast eyes. Once, however, she glanced at the parting orb, whose lustrous rays recalled to her mind Bruno’s look of joy when he beheld her beside the couch.
If Catherine had allowed herself to remember only Savin’s generosity instead of harboring wicked thoughts; if she had studied the situation and reflected a little, she would have realized what a meagre sacrifice of self-love would have won her husband over to devotion once more. But this effort seemed to her out of the question. She only remembered that if Savin did not love her two other men did. Had not Firmin and Bruno evinced how much she was to be desired? Ah! they would know—either one of them—how to appreciate her beauty and fine qualities. Thus onward she walked, with vengeance in her heart.
Beyond the village comparative calm prevailed. Here no disputes were heard. On the rustic little bridge she met Mother Mathurine. The poor woman was hurrying toward St. Benoit.
“Have you seen Bruno, Madame Catherine?” she asked, with heart-broken sobs.
“Do not take on so, Mother Mathurine. He is safe. Monsieur Eugène is taking care of him.”
“Tell me the worst, Madame,” pleaded the old woman.