“Yes, surely; but she, too, has gone already.”

“What! gone? Did she not have a child with her?”

“Yes, a little boy who cried. They both went away after they had been here two hours.”

“Went away! Where?”

“Where they came from, I suppose. I didn’t ask them.”

“But why did they go away?” asked Germain, growing more and more uneasy.

“How the deuce do I know?”

“Did they not agree about wages? Yet that must have been settled before.”

“I can tell you nothing about it. I saw them come and go, nothing more.”

Germain walked toward the farm and questioned the farmer. Nobody could give him an explanation; but after speaking with the farmer, he felt sure that the girl had gone without saying a word, and had taken the weeping child with her.