"Art thou promised to the beauty of the market, the little Marie?"
There was no pause this time. Léon's words came out rapidly with bitter emphasis: "Marie Famette is going to marry Marais of Vatteville."
"Marry! Ma foi! I hear the girl is very ill. I forget—there is a sick girl in the wagon now."
It seemed to the listener that Léon spoke heedless of the farmer's last words: "Once again the town-gossip has deceived you, Michel. I heard a week ago, and Houlard had just learned it from the Doctor Guéroult, that Marie Famette is as well and gay as ever. I believe she has come back to the market."
No reply. The silence that followed oppressed Marie: a sense of guilt stole over her. It was not likely that old Michel Roussel knew who she was when he helped her into the wagon: she remembered now that Léon had told her of his rich cousin at Yvetôt; she knew she must get out soon, and then Léon would see her and know that she had heard him. She felt sick with shame. Would it not have been more honest to have betrayed her presence? It was too late now. "And I could not—I have not the courage." Marie crouched closer under the wall of baskets.
Suddenly, Léon spoke. "Well, Michel, I will get out here," he said.
The wagon stopped. Marie heard farewells exchanged, and then on they jogged again to St. Gertrude.
Marie's heart was suddenly stilled: its painful throbbing and fluttering had subsided—it sank like lead. Léon was gone, and she had flung away her only chance of telling him that Nicolas Marais never had been—never could be—more to her than a friend.
"Oh what a fool I am! I may often see him, but how can I say this? And just now the way was open!"
When Farmer Roussel stopped the wagon again, and came round to the back to help Marie out, he found her sobbing bitterly.