“Is it his child?” asked Madame Graslin.
“People think so.”
“Why didn’t he marry her?”
“How could he? They would certainly have arrested him. As it was, when La Curieux heard he was sentenced to the galleys the poor girl left this part of the country.”
“Was she a pretty girl?”
“Oh!” said Maurice, “my mother says she was very like another girl who has also left Montegnac for something the same reason,—Denise Tascheron.”
“She loved him?” said Madame Graslin.
“Ha, yes! because he chauffed; women do like things that are out of the way. However, nothing ever did surprise the community more than that love affair. Catherine Curieux lived as virtuous a life as a holy virgin; she passed for a pearl of purity in her village of Vizay, which is really a small town in the Correze on the line between the two departments. Her father and mother are farmers to the Messieurs Brezac. Catherine Curieux was about seventeen when Farrabesche was sent to the galleys. The Farrabesches were an old family from the same region, who settled in the commune of Montegnac; they hired their farm from the village. The father and mother Farrabesche are dead, but Catherine’s three sisters are married, one in Aubusson, another in Limoges, and a third in Saint-Leonard.”
“Do you think Farrabesche knows where Catherine Curieux is?” asked Madame Graslin.
“If he did know he’d break his parole. Oh! he’d go to her. As soon as he came back from the galleys he got Monsieur Bonnet to ask for the little boy whom the grandfather and grandmother were taking care of; and Monsieur Bonnet obtained the child.”