The finding of Tom had filled them with anger against Gard. The finding of Peter filled them with fear.
Gard had sufficed as explanation and scapegoat for Tom's death, and as vent for their feelings. But what of Peter's?
It had not been Gard, then? And if not Gard, who?
For, whoever it was, he was still at large, and any of them might be the next.
There were new terrors in the eyes that gazed so wildly on the narrow white path and the towering pinnacles of the Coupée. They had been familiar with it all, all their lives, but suddenly it had become strange to them.
If grisly Death, all bones and scythe, had come stalking along it before their eyes at that moment, they would have shrieked, no doubt, and fallen flat, but he would have no more than answered to their feelings and fulfilled their expectations.
As it was, when the Seigneur's big white stallion stuck his head over the green dyke behind them, and gave a shrill neigh at the unexpected sight of so many people in a field which was usually occupied only by Charles Guille's two mild-eyed cows and their calves, the women screamed and the children lied.
"Man doux! but I thought it was the devil himself," said old Mrs. Guille. "Oui-gia!" and shook an angry fist at him.
But the discoverer of the body was already away along the road to Vauroque, covering the ground like a little incarnation of ill-news.
The exertion of running cleared away the choking, if it took his breath. He shouted as he drew near the houses.