The three travellers were silent for a long time. The vagabond, hidden behind the partition at the rear, did not take his eyes from them, and did not leave his place; after half an hour, the baron rose, saying:
"Let us go on; it is useless to remain here any longer."
"Yes, let us go," said Alfred, "and let us try to remember the road, so that we need not go over the same ground twice, which would cause us to waste time. However, this place is easily recognized; I have seen few spots so wild, so melancholy as this, where somebody has thought fit to build this house.—Well, Edouard, are you coming?"
Edouard rose, casting a last glance at the walls of the hut, and walked slowly off with his companions. Soon their steps died away along the path, then the travellers disappeared altogether from the sight of Charlot, who was looking after them from the doorway.
Thereupon the vagabond returned triumphantly to Isaure, crying:
"It was they! but they haven’t the slightest suspicion, and they have gone away from this place, and will never return to it!"
"It was they!" murmured the girl; it seemed to her then that she had been torn once more from those whom she loved; she had not yet experienced such a feeling of anguish; her last hope was gone; and she fell, sobbing, at the vagabond’s feet.
XXXII
THE NEWFOUNDLAND DOG
The Baron de Marcey and the two friends searched with the utmost care every village and hamlet in Auvergne. The shepherd’s hut, the ploughman’s cottage, the most wretched hovel did not escape their notice. Wherever they went, they asked questions, made inquiries, described Isaure, and promised money to anyone who should furnish information concerning the girl. Everywhere their search was fruitless, their investigations without result, and each day that passed took away a part of the hope that sustained them.
Edouard had sunk into the lowest depths of despair. Since he had known that Isaure really loved him, that no other than he had made her heart beat faster, his love had become more intense. He reproached himself bitterly for the suspicions he had conceived, for the tears he had caused the poor child to shed. The thought of not seeing her again, of having no opportunity, by the power of his love, to make her forget the grief that he had caused her, crushed him and made him insensible to every other sentiment. If the baron’s grief was less keen, one could see by his melancholy expression and by his careworn brow how profoundly he regretted the lovable child upon whom he had bestowed so much care. Indeed, he often accused himself of the disaster that had befallen Isaure.