Rénée Janavel had learnt how to obey and how to suffer, but to-night one word of pleading forced its way from her lips.
‘It is in the night,’ she said, ‘in the dark night that we need the cheer and the warmth. Oh, mother, I lit the fire to keep away my fear——’
The words sank in a broken whisper; it was strange for Rénée Janavel to speak of fear.
The woman paused in wonder.
Why should Rénée be afraid of aught but the danger which the blaze might bring—the danger of cruel men who were thirsting for their blood: men who had sworn that no remnant of the proscribed race should be left in the valleys, and who had swept the fields and forests again and again in their search for any Vaudois in hiding there? Rénée, child of the mountains as she was, why should she fear anything but this? The winter was past, and the prowling wolves had withdrawn themselves; the shy black bears that haunted the hills were not creatures to be greatly affrighted at. What ailed the girl?
Rénée came to her side, and hid her face against the woman’s knee.
‘It is so lonely,’ she murmured brokenly. ‘Lately, at night, I have thought over many things, terrible things—and I have been frightened even to turn my head, too frightened to call to you. Oh, mother, mother dear! will these days never have an end? Shall we never be happy again, Gaspard and you and I?
‘I know that it is cowardly,’ she went on in pathetic appeal. ‘But, mother, you are well now, almost quite strong again: could we not creep away and gain the Swiss country where the rest are gone; and see the dear friendly faces, and sleep in peace, afraid of no man?’
She stopped, for her throat was full of sobbing, and her head sank lower yet upon the trembling hands.
Just then some remaining spark of fire was kindled into blaze by the wind that swept into the cave, and the dried grass leapt into a red flame that threw dancing gleams and shadows on the rocks around, and touched the trunk of a pine overhanging the place with a glow as of deepest orange. Little Tutu, the dormouse, curled himself up in soft satisfaction, a nut which Rénée had given him held tight in his tiny paws.