“You know that Captain la Grange is my cousin?”
“You did not know that I am to be his wife?”
They stood face to face, looking deep into each other’s eyes, while a long minute dragged by, and the rustling night sounds and the call of the crickets came to their ears.
“No,” he said, “I did not know. May I keep the flower, Mademoiselle?”
She bowed her head. She could not speak.
“Good-night.”
“Good-night.”
He walked away. She saw him stop at the knoll where the priest lay asleep on a bed of boughs, and stand for a moment gazing down at him. Then he went into the shadows. From the crackling of the twigs she knew that he was walking about among the trees. She sank to the ground and listened to the crickets. A frog bellowed in the valley; perhaps he had been calling before––she did not know.
She fell asleep, with her cheek resting against a mossy log. She did not know when Menard came back and stood for a long time looking at her. He did not awaken Father Claude until long after the time for changing the watch.