"Let us burn the ladder," cried the peasants.
As to the funereal wagon for which they were watching, it had taken another road, and was already two miles farther away, in the village where Michelle Fléchard had seen it pass at sunrise.
[V.]
VOX IN DESERTO.
After leaving the three children to whom she had given her bread, Michelle Fléchard started at random through the woods.
Since no one would show her the way, she must find it without help. From time to time she paused, and sat down to rest; then up and away again. She was overcome by that intense weariness which one feels first in the muscles, then in the bones,—like the fatigue of a slave. And a slave indeed she was,—the slave of her lost children. They must be found; each passing moment might be fatal to them. A duty like this debars one from the right to breathe freely; yet she was very weary. When one has reached this stage of fatigue it becomes a question whether another step can be taken. Could she do it? She had been walking since morning without finding either a village or a house. When she first started she had followed the right path, but soon wandered into the wrong one, and at last quite lost her way among the thick branches, where one tree looked just like another. Was she drawing near her goal? Were her sufferings almost over? She was following the way of the Cross, and felt all the languor and exhaustion of the final station. Was she doomed to fall dead on the road? At one time it seemed to her impossible to take another step: the sun was low, the forest dark, the paths no longer visible in the grass, and God only knew what was to become of her. She began to call, but there was no reply.
Looking around, she perceived an opening among the branches, and no sooner had she started in that direction than she found herself out of the wood.
Before her lay a valley no wider than a trench, across whose stony bottom flowed a slender stream of clear water. Then she realized that she was excessively thirsty, and approaching it knelt to drink; and while thus kneeling she thought she would say her prayers.
When she rose she tried to get her bearings, and crossed the brook.