"What is it, child? This is no day for laughter."
"Nothing," she answered, rising.
"Then walk on in front," put in Mathurin. "You might be meeting someone."
And she went down the avenues, then along the path by the leafless hedges in front as she had been hidden. Her white coif turned neither to the right nor to the left; but proud as one enduring for her love, she walked on with elastic step down the hill towards the elm-trees of the farmstead, and her eyes gazing fixedly into the gathering night—those eyes which none could read, gazing at everything, seeing nothing, were filled with tender musings. She entered her domain, and began to pour over the bread the soup which had been simmering in her absence. The men stayed without, talking. When they came in she felt sure that she had been again betrayed by Mathurin, and that her father was angry with her. André came in last, at about eight o'clock. The farmer had proposed waiting supper until his return, and he and Mathurin had sat in the chimney-corner warming themselves, by turns taking and trying the cane of M. Henri as they talked over the sad events of the day: the men who had come from Sallertaine to bid, how they had heard the battens nailed up again across the lower windows as they came away; the lights they had seen wandering along the corridors of the upper floor as in the good old days when the great white house was full of guests.
"Our masters will never come back now," said Toussaint Lumineau. "And I, who always believed in them! This is the end!"
"The end!" repeated André, as he came in at the door from the outer darkness. "I am glad not to have seen it."
The good-looking young Maraîchin seemed tired and troubled; his eyes were brilliant as if about to shed tears. Toussaint Lumineau thought that the shame of this public auction, so painful to him, had affected his son in like manner, and had been the sole cause of his long absence.
"Sit down, Driot," he said, "you must be hungry. The soup is ready."
"No, I am not hungry," replied André.
"Nor am I," returned his father.