'What was it she said?' asked Pauline, feeling frightened.
The woman was rushing up to them, and at last they heard her hoarse scream, like the wail of an animal:
'The child! the child! the child!'
Her husband and son had been at work since the morning some couple of miles away in an oat-field which they had inherited. She herself had only lately gone out to get a basketful of carrots, leaving the child asleep, and, contrary to her habit, fastening up the house. The fire had probably been smouldering some time, for the woman was stupefied, and swore she had extinguished every ember before going out. At all events the thatched roof was now aglow, and flames shot up athwart the golden sunlight.
'Is the door locked, then?' cried Lazare.
The woman did not hear him. She was quite distraught, and rushed without any apparent reason round the house, as though she were trying to discover some opening, some means of entrance which she must have known did not exist. Then she fell again. Her legs no longer had the strength to support her, and her ashy face showed all the agony of despair and terror, while she continued screaming:
'The child! the child!'
Big tears rose to Pauline's eyes; but Lazare was even more painfully affected by the woman's cry, which completely unnerved him. It was becoming more than he could bear, and he suddenly exclaimed:
'I'll go and fetch your child!'
His cousin looked at him in wild alarm. She grasped his hands and tried to hold him back.