Folle-Farine, without a word in answer, turned on her heel and left her.
The old woman watched her shadow pass across the threshold, and away down the garden-paths between the green lines of the clipped box, and vanish beyond the fall of drooping fig-boughs and the walls of ivy and of laurel; then with a chuckle she poured out her hot coffee, and sat in her corner and made her evening meal, well pleased; comfort was secured her for the few years which she had to live, and she was revenged for the loss of the sequins.
"How well it is for me that I went to mass every Saint's-day!" she thought, foreseeing easy years and plenty under the rule of the Church and of old deaf Francvron, the baker.
Folle-Farine mounted the wooden ladder to the hayloft which had been her sleeping-chamber, there took the little linen and the few other garments which belonged to her, folded them together in her winter sheepskin, and went down the wooden steps once more, and out of the mill-garden across the bridge into the woods.
She had no fixed purpose even for the immediate hour; she had not even a tangible thought for her future. She acted on sheer mechanical impulse, like one who does some things unconsciously, walking abroad in the trance of sleep. That she was absolutely destitute scarcely bore any sense to her. She had never realized that this begrudged roof and scanty fare, which Flamma had bestowed on her, had, wretched though they were, yet been all the difference between home and homelessness—between existence and starvation.
She wandered on aimlessly through the woods.
She paused a moment on the river-sand, and turned and looked back at the mill and the house. From where she stood, she could see its brown gables and its peaked roof rising from masses of orchard-blossom, white and wide as sea-foam; further round it, closed the dark belt of the sweet chestnut woods.
She looked; and great salt tears rushed into her hot eyes and blinded them.
She had been hated by those who dwelt there, and had there known only pain, and toil, and blows, and bitter words. And yet the place itself was dear to her, its homely and simple look: its quiet garden-ways, its dells of leafy shadow, its bright and angry waters, its furred and feathered creatures that gave it life and loveliness,—these had been her consolations often,—these, in a way, she loved.
Such as it was, her life had been bound up with it; and though often its cool pale skies and level lands had been a prison to her, yet her heart clove to it in this moment when she left it—forever. She looked once at it long and lingeringly; then turned and went on her way.