Something fierce prompted Madeleine to say: “I’m not going to run away!” But Vanhove, having hoisted his bedstead into the tender, was persuading the men to drive on.
Madeleine saw the lever put over, and the ponderous machine of another generation roar away upon the cobbles, its single cylinder panting desperately. Then she felt indeed disturbed, as though she had been forced to part with a conviction.
* * * *
As she went back to the farm through the fairy beauty of the evening—(were ever evenings so beautiful as those of the April retreat?)—her step was no less firm, her glance as calm, as usual. Passing over the plank bridge, and entering the house by the back, she was confronted by the spectacle of Berthe in her best hat, with a bundle.
“I’m going!” said the apparition simply.
“What has come over you?”
“After you were gone, an English wagon came, all full of people from Armentières way. The secretary of Nieppe told the patron that the Bosche are in Laventie, and that Marie has left, so the Patron has taken the tumbril and gone after her potatoes!”
Madeleine was at no loss. She even approved the old man’s determination. Only she considered that it would have been better for her to go.
“You stay here,” she said. “I’m going up to the château to borrow the young Baron’s bicycle!” She knew well enough that Georges’ machine was stowed away in the coachhouse. On that she could catch her father, and send him back. But she had not reckoned up the situation.
“No,” said Berthe, “I’m going!”