Babet was nothing loath, though she grumbled loudly at the suggestion, but Charlot stopped digging a fern and looked up with a troubled face. The woman set down the basket for him to fill, and he half rose and made a movement as if to stop her, and then bent over his task again. Apparently, he had decided to let her go, and in a few moments her tall figure had disappeared behind the cliffs and he was alone with the young girl and her dog. Rosaline was strolling along the mossy bank singing softly to herself, the picture of joyful content. She was walking in a dream of love and youth, and she had forgotten the hunchback. He continued to kneel over the ferns, but he had paused in his digging, and his mournful brown eyes followed her with a mute devotion in their gaze. He did not know how long he could keep her there, but every half-hour counted, and surely there was hope that it would be over before she went back to the château. He knew what was passing there, but she did not, and her song almost made him shudder. Still, he hoped, he hoped much, that it was only d’Aguesseau who was wanted, and he was out of reach. The hunchback did not believe that this beautiful young creature was in any personal danger. He thought of the wedding shoes, and bent over the fern with a frown. What would that handsome savage, M. de Baudri, do? Ah, that was the question. Charlot remembered last night and its temptations; verily, love and hate were nearly akin, and he had seen the fiend in monsieur’s open blue eyes.
Rosaline was in a happy mood. She stooped and gathering a handful of chestnuts, threw them—one by one—for Truffe to chase, and laughed gayly at the poodle’s antics, clapping her hands to make her bring the nuts back to be thrown again. The hunchback watched her in silence, bending over his task again; the basket was nearly full of plumes of fern now, and he was racking his brain for an excuse to keep mademoiselle longer away from the house. The drawn white face was full of anxiety, and now and then the brown hands trembled as they handled the plants.
“Do you think it will be an early winter, Charlot?� Rosaline said at last, still tossing the chestnuts for Truffe.
“I cannot tell, mademoiselle,� he replied, looking up at the sky. “But last night the wind came howling straight from the Cévennes, and some say that means a short autumn. The bon Dieu knows that there will be suffering; so many of these Cévenols have been taken or slain, and there were so few to gather the crops or card the wool. Mother of Heaven, the times are evil!�
There was silence; Rosaline’s face had lost its joyous look, and she left off playing with the dog and walked back to the spot where the shoemaker was kneeling by his basket.
“Babet says the winter will be fearfully cold,� she said absently, “and she is wise about these matters. I know not how many signs she has, but certainly more than I could ever remember.�
“I do not know about such things,� he answered quietly, “but the autumn came early this year.�
Rosaline looked dreamily away toward the north.
“The winter with its terrible storms, and this cruel war,� she said thoughtfully,—“I fear the suffering will be very great, Charlot. How does it seem in Nîmes? What does M. Montrevel say?�
“That it cannot last, mademoiselle,� he replied. “His Majesty has sent great reinforcements, and the maréchal is determined to crush the insurrection. Nothing is talked of in Nîmes save the grandeur of the king and the weakness of the Cévenols.�