From time to time he did a day’s work at Le Maupas. He was an idle good-for-nothing, whom Dr. Guibert had helped. He often came to the door and asked for work, though really only to get a drink.
“Good evening, Baron. You did not meet my mother on the road?”
“No, Miss, I saw nobody.”
Seated near the stove with his felt hat crushed in his hand, he looked at the girl and the servant with a cunning eye. Paule left them and began gazing out once more into the night. The moon was illuminating the scene with her silvery beams, but her light revealed only the emptiness of the road.
In the kitchen the rustic was saying to Marie: “So you haven’t heard anything?”
“About what?” asked the servant, putting her pan on the fire.
“About the news, bless you!”
“What news, you old chatterbox? What are you keeping to yourself?”
Distrustful, he had thought that they were hiding it from him. At last he understood that at Le Maupas they were still ignorant of what all Cognin already knew. As he passed in front of the hospitable house, he had yielded to his curiosity to see the effect of the bad news. But he would not tell anything, not he! Everybody has his own job to do. He quickly drained his glass of red wine, refused a second, and got up to leave.
“Well, Baron, what about your news? Are you going to take it on to Vimines?”