Caillette and Pierre Labarre watched Françoise, when finally she arose from her chair, and went toward the door. On the threshold she seemed to hesitate. She thrust back her gray hair, and pressed her hand to her brow. Then, as if she suddenly remembered something, she turned and went toward the door in the back of the house, Caillette and Pierre following her every step she took. She went out into the garden, and up a winding path to the hill, which she began to climb with panting breath.
"Ah! she is going to the little farm of Lasvène which was burned," said Pierre to himself.
Then, all the time watching Françoise, he began to question Caillette.
What motive had Françoise in these persistent wanderings? Was it merely the whim of a mad woman or had she some fixed design?
Françoise walked on. Sometimes she stopped short, and called Jacques, then Cinette. Labarre asked himself if it were not his duty to stop this poor woman, but a secret instinct bade him watch her to the end.
An hour elapsed, but Françoise seemed to feel no fatigue. At the cross-roads she did not hesitate. Finally they reached the Gorge d'Outremont. In the fast gathering darkness, the place was horrible and gloomy. As in a former description we have said, the mountain seemed at this gorge to have been cleft in twain by a gigantic hatchet.
At this moment, the clouds parted, and a pale young moon looked down on the landscape.
Françoise stopped short, Pierre well knew why. The little cottage of old Lasvène had vanished, and the poor woman was bewildered. Labarre went to her, and took her hand. He knew where the foundations of the cottage were, and convinced that this was why she had come, he led her to the ruins. She laughed in a childish way.
"Burned? Ah! yes;" she repeated the cry of the Cossacks. "Death to the French!" And then she began to run.
It was an outbreak of madness. Caillette and Pierre uttered cries of fright.