“They have never inquired for her since she left. Besides they did enough in taking charge of the little one.”
“Well, Farrabesche,” said Veronique, returning toward the house. “I will make it my business to know if Catherine still lives; and if so, what is her present mode of life.”
“Oh! madame, whatever that may be,” said the man gently, “it would be happiness for me if I could have her for my wife. It is for her to object, not me. Our marriage would legitimatize this poor boy, who as yet knows nothing of his position.”
The look the father threw upon the lad explained the life of these two beings, abandoned, or voluntarily isolated; they were all in all to each other, like two compatriots adrift upon a desert.
“Then you love Catherine?” said Veronique.
“Even if I did not love her, madame,” he replied, “she is to me, in my situation, the only woman there is in the world.”
Madame Graslin turned hurriedly and walked away under the chestnut trees, as if attacked by some sharp pain; the keeper, thinking she was moved by a sudden caprice, did not venture to follow her.
XIV. THE TORRENT OF THE GABOU
Veronique remained for some minutes under the chestnut trees, apparently looking at the landscape. Thence she could see that portion of the forest which clothes the side of the valley down which flows the torrent of the Gabou, now dry, a mass of stones, looking like a huge ditch cut between the wooded mountains of Montegnac and another chain of parallel hills beyond,—the latter being much steeper and without vegetation, except for heath and juniper and a few sparse trees toward their summit.