When the night shut in, all had gone.
The farm-house remained dark and silent. Through the murky open door there came, like a far-off whisper, the weary breathing of the tired family, all of whom had fallen exhausted as though slain in the battle of grief.
Batiste, still motionless, gazed stupefied at the stars which twinkled in the dark blue of night.
Solitude brought him to his senses; he began to realize his situation.
The plain had its usual aspect, but to him it appeared more beautiful, more tranquillizing, like a frowning face which unbends and smiles.
The people, whose shouts resounded in the distance in the doors of the farm-houses, no longer hated him and would no longer persecute his children. They had been beneath his roof and had blotted out with their footsteps the curse that lay on the lands of old Barret. He would begin a new life. But at what a price!
And suddenly facing the exact realization of his misfortune, thinking of poor Pascualet, who now lay crushed by a heavy weight of damp and fetid earth, his white vestment contaminated by the corruption of other bodies, ambushed by the filthy worm, the beautiful boy with the delicate skin over which his calloused hand had been wont to glide, the blond hair which he had so often caressed, he felt a leaden wave which rose from his stomach to his throat.
The crickets which sang on the nearby slope grew silent, frightened by the strange hiccough which broke the stillness, and sounded in the darkness for the greater part of the night like the stertorous breathing of a wounded beast.
IX
ST. JOHN'S day arrived, the greatest period of the year; the time of harvest and abundance.