"I tell you," she repeated to conclude, "that it is he who is tampering with me, and that he'll do for me, little as he is."
The sudden tinkling of an alarum made her cast the same anxious glance outside as before. This was the preceding post informing Misard that a train was coming in the direction of Paris, and the needle of the apparatus, standing in front of the window, pointed that way. Stopping the ringing, he went out to signal the train by two blasts of the horn, while Flore, at the same moment, came and closed the gate. Then, planting herself before it, she held the flag up straight in its leather case. The train, an express, hidden by a curve, could be heard advancing with a roar that grew louder as it approached. It passed like a thunderbolt, shaking, threatening to carry away the low habitation in a tempestuous gust of wind.
Flore returned to her vegetables; while Misard, after blocking the up-line behind the train, went to open the down-line, by lowering the lever to efface the red signal, for another tinkling, accompanied by the rise of the other needle, had just warned him that the train which had gone by five minutes previously was clear of the next post. He returned to his box, communicated with the two watchmen, jotted down the passing of the train, and waited. It was always the same kind of work that he did, for twelve consecutive hours, living there, eating there, without reading half a dozen lines of a newspaper, without appearing even to have a single thought in his slanting skull.
"Perhaps he is jealous," suggested Jacques.
But Aunt Phasie shrugged her shoulders in pity.
"Ah! my lad, what is that you say? He jealous!"
Then, with the old shiver upon her, she added:
"No, no, he never cared for me. All he cares for is money. Why we quarrelled, you see, was because I would not give him the 1,000 frcs. I inherited from father last year. Then, just as he threatened me that it would bring me bad luck, I fell ill. And the complaint has not left me since. Yes, it is exactly from that time that I have been unwell."
The young man understood her idea; and, attributing it to the gloomy thoughts of a sick woman, he still endeavoured to dissuade her. But she obstinately shook her head, like a person who has made up her mind. So that he ended by saying: