"If you treat him as you do me, if you refuse to talk to him or let him talk about Gilberte, what good do you suppose a visit from you will do him? That's not the kind of thing that will cure him."
"Jean, you wear out my patience, you make me ill! Be off, I say!"
"Oho! the wind has changed," thought the carpenter. "I must wait till the sun comes out again."
He put on his jacket and walked across the park. Monsieur de Boisguilbault accompanied him, to close the gate after him. It was still light. The marquis noticed on the recently raked gravel the prints of a woman's tiny foot going to and coming from the chalet. He did not call the attention of the carpenter, who failed to notice the marks.
Meanwhile Gilberte had waited longer than she intended. The sun had set ten minutes before and the time seemed mortally long to her. As the approach of night and the fear of meeting some one from the château who might recognize her, increased her uneasiness and impatience, she ventured to leave the place where she was hiding and go down a little way toward the stream, so that she would still be near enough to recognize the carpenter. But she had not taken three steps in the open when she heard footsteps behind her, and, turning hurriedly, she saw Constant Galuchet, armed with his fishing-pole, going toward Gargilesse.
She pulled her hood over her face, but not so quickly that the angler for gudgeons did not see a lock of golden hair, a blue eye and a rosy cheek. Moreover, it would have been very difficult for Gilberte to deceive anyone who was following her so closely. There was nothing of the peasant in her carriage, and the fustian cape was not long enough to hide the hem of a light dress and a pretty foot encased in a shapely and tight-fitting little gaiter. Constant Galuchet's curiosity was keenly aroused by this meeting. He had too much contempt for the peasant girls to make love to them on his excursions; but the sight of a young lady in disguise gave a fillip to his aristocratic curiosity, and a vague, instinctive feeling that those golden locks so difficult of concealment were Gilberte's, induced him to follow her and frighten her.
So he plodded along in her wake, sometimes walking immediately behind her, sometimes beside her, moderating or quickening his pace to defeat the little ruses to which she resorted to let him pass her and to fall behind; stopping when she stopped, leaning toward her as he brushed by, and darting inquisitive and insolent glances under her hood.
Gilberte, terrified beyond measure, looked about for some house in which she could take refuge; and seeing none she kept on in the direction of Gargilesse, hoping that the carpenter would overtake her and rid her of her troublesome escort.
But hearing no footsteps and unable to endure being followed thus, she stooped as if to look in her basket, to make her tormenter think that she had forgotten or lost something; then turned back toward the park, thinking that Galuchet, having no excuse for following her in that direction, would not have the audacity to do it.
It was too late; Constant had recognized her and an impulse of base vindictiveness took possession of him.