"What's that you say? So you're anxious to get me assassinated, you brute? Raze the house to the ground and you won't find a copper. Take that paper, or, by God, you shall have nothing at all!"
Buteau, with a hardened and obstinate brow, did not quail before his father's raised fist.
"No!"
An awkward silence again fell. The huge hat was now an encumbrance and obstruction, with this solitary scrap of paper, which nobody would touch, inside it. The surveyor, to cut things short, advised the old man to draw it out himself. He did so, gravely, and went to the light to read it, as if the number were still unknown.
"Three! You've the third lot, d'ye hear? The deed is ready, and it's quite certain that Monsieur Baillehache won't alter it, for once done can't be undone. As you're sleeping here, I give you the night to think it over in. So that's done with. Let's say no more about it."
Buteau, wrapped in shadow, made no reply. The others noisily assented, while the mother at last made up her mind to light a candle so as to lay the cloth.
At that moment Jean, who was coming to meet his comrade, espied two intertwined shadows watching, from the dark deserted road, the progress of events at the Fouans. Feathery snow-flakes were beginning to flutter across the slate-grey sky.
"Oh, Monsieur Jean," said a soft voice, "how you frightened us!"
Then he recognised Françoise's long face and thick lips. She was nestling against her sister Lise, and had one arm round her waist, while she leant her head on her shoulder. The two sisters adored each other, and were always seen about like this, hanging on each other's neck. Lise taller, and of pleasant aspect, despite her large features and the incipient development of her whole plump person, bore her misfortune with equanimity.