That icy December evening Silvine and Prosper were alone with Charlot in the large kitchen of the farmhouse, she sewing and he engaged in making himself a fine whip. It was seven o'clock; they had dined at six without waiting for old Fouchard, who must have been detained at Raucourt, where there was a scarcity of meat; and Henriette, whose turn it was that night to sit up watching at the ambulance, had just gone off after instructing Silvine to fill Jean's stove with coals before she went to bed.
Out of doors the sky hung very blackly over the white snow. Not a sound came from the buried village, and in the room nothing could be heard save Prosper's knife as he diligently cut rosettes and lozenges in the bark of the dog-wood whip-stock. At times he paused and looked at Charlot, who, overcome by drowsiness, was nodding his big fair head. When the child had at last fallen asleep it seemed as though the silence had become yet more intense. The mother had gently pushed the candle aside so that the light might not fall upon her little one's eyelids; and, still plying her needle, she sank at last into a deep reverie.
Then it was that Prosper, after again hesitating, made up his mind to speak: 'I say, Silvine, I've something to tell you. Yes, I was waiting to be alone with you to tell you about it.'
These words sufficed to render her anxious, and she raised her eyes.
'This is what it is. Forgive me for distressing you, but it is best that you should be warned. Close by the church this morning, at Remilly, I saw Goliath just as I see you now, full in the face, so that there was no mistaking him.'
She became quite livid, her hands trembled, and she could only stammer a hollow plaint: 'Oh! my God, my God!'
Prosper continued talking in his prudent way, relating what he had learnt during the day by questioning one and another of the villagers. Not one of them now entertained a doubt but that Goliath was a spy and had formerly taken up his abode in the district in order to become acquainted with its roads and resources, and the most trifling details of its inhabitants' mode of life. Folks remembered his stay at old Fouchard's farm, the abrupt fashion in which he had taken himself off, and the situations which he had afterwards held over towards Beaumont and Raucourt. And now he had come back again, holding an equivocal position at the Commandature of Sedan and once more scouring the surrounding villages, as though it were his business to denounce certain folks and tax others, and exercise a surveillance respecting the requisitions with which the inhabitants were being overwhelmed. That morning he had terrorised Remilly with respect to the delivery of some flour which was not being supplied with sufficient promptitude or in sufficient quantities.
'Well, you are warned,' repeated Prosper as he finished his narrative, 'so you will know what to do when he comes here.'
She interrupted him with a cry of terror: 'You think he will come here then?'