He stopped for a second, then went on: "And I shall also need you at Maraucourt. You can go back this evening, and tomorrow be at the office. I will tell you what you will have to do."
When she had interpreted the orders which he wished to give to the machinists, he left, and that day she was not required to read the newspapers.
But what did that matter? Hadn't her grandfather said that on the morrow he would need her at Maraucourt?
"I shall need you at Maraucourt!" She kept repeating these words over and over again as she tramped along the roads over which William had driven her in the trap.
How was she going to be employed? She imagined all sorts of ways, but she could not feel certain of anything, except that she was not to be sent back to push trucks. That was a sure thing; for the rest she would have to wait. But she need not wait in a state of feverish anxiety, for from her grandfather's manner she might hope for the best. If she, a poor little girl, could only have enough wisdom to follow the course that her mother had mapped out for her before dying, slowly and carefully, without trying to hasten events, her life, which she held in her own hands, would be what she herself made it. She must remember this always, in everything she said, every time she had to make a resolution, every time she took a step forward, and each time she took this step she must take it without asking advice of anyone.
On her way back to Maraucourt she turned all this over in her little head. She walked slowly, stopping when she wanted to pick a flower that grew beneath the hedge, or when, in looking over a fence, she could see a pretty one that seemed to be beckoning to her from the meadow. Now and again she got rather excited; then she would quicken her step; then she slowed up again, telling herself that there was no occasion for her to hurry. Here was one thing she had to do—she must make it a rule, make it a habit, not to give way to an impulse. Oh, she would have to be very wise. Her pretty face was very grave as she walked along, her hands full of lovely wild flowers.
She found her island the same as she had left it, each thing in its place. The birds had even shown respect for the berries beneath the willow tree which had ripened in her absence. Here was something for her supper. She had not counted upon having berries.
She had returned at an earlier hour than when she had left the factory, so she did not feel inclined to go to bed as soon as her supper was over. She sat by the pond in the quiet of the evening, watching the night slowly fall.
Although she had been away only a short time, something seemed to have occurred to disturb the quietness of her little shelter. In the fields there was no longer the solemn silence of the night which had struck her on the first days that she had installed herself on the island. Previously, all she could hear in the entire valley, on the pond, in the big trees and the foliage, was the mysterious rustling of the birds as they returned to the nests for the night. Now the silence was disturbed by all kinds of noises—the blow of the forge, the grind of the axle, the swish of a whip, and the murmur of voices.
As she had tramped along the roads from Saint-Pipoy she had noticed that the harvest had commenced in the fields that were most exposed, and soon the mowers would come as far as her little nook, which was shaded by the big trees.