She hoped to hear footsteps on the road, or even Bas-Rouge's bark. But no; in the dream-like mist that incessantly formed and dispersed about her, amid the dim moving lights and shadows around, there was but one sound, that of the distant roll of the sea against the shores of La Vendée. She was about to turn, follow the dyke to reach the bridge of Sallertaine and its familiar houses, when a well-known whistle, like that of a plover, met her ear. Could it be possible?
The young girl's blood rushed to her heart; she stopped short in rapture and astonishment, without strength to look behind her. Motionless she stood, listening to the coming of one her heart had recognised. He came by the road she had come, from the thickets of La Fromentière. Erect, trembling, she stood on the grass-grown road, felt two hands placed on her shoulders, then a rush of air that moved the right side of her cloak, and a man had lightly sprung in front of her, with the words:
"It is I, Rousille. I have not frightened you?"
There he was in his brown coat, stick in hand, looking well pleased at his piece of audacity.
Notwithstanding her distress, Rousille could not repress a cry of joy. A smile rose to her face like an air bubble on troubled waters that none can hinder, and that widens as it goes.
"Oh how happy I am!" she said. But then quickly resumed: "No, I am wrong to speak like that. You do not know of our trouble at home. François has gone, Eléonore has gone; I am all alone there, and I have come out to find father, who has not come home. I have no time to spare for you, Jean Nesmy. It would be wrong!"
He watched the smile fade from her face in the moonlight; and as she drew her cloak about her to resume her way, he said hurriedly:
"I know all, Rousille. For the last three days I have been at Chalons trying to find a situation as near here as possible. I have not found one. But this evening I heard of François' going; it is the talk of the town in one way and another. I ran at once to La Fromentière, keeping out of sight. I watched you in the garden, in the barn. Since sundown I have heard you crying; but the farmer was the only one I saw go out."
"Where is he—at Sallertaine?"
"No; he went, but came back. I was in hiding about here. He passed just where we are now standing, and he was gesticulating and talking to himself as if he were demented."