Then she released her grasp and went away without another word.

She had no chance of speaking to him for several days; and, as the
stable was now always locked at night, she was afraid to make any noise,
for fear of creating a scandal. One morning, however, she saw another
man come in at dinner time, and she said: "Has Jacques left?" "Yes;" the
man replied; "I have got his place."

This made her tremble so violently that she could not take the saucepan
off the fire; and later, when they were all at work, she went up into
her room and cried, burying her head in the bolster, so that she
might not be heard. During the day, however, she tried to obtain some
information without exciting any suspicion, but she was so overwhelmed
by the thoughts of her misfortune that she fancied that all the people
whom she asked laughed maliciously. All she learned, however, was that
he had left the neighborhood altogether.

PART II

Then a cloud of constant misery began for her. She worked mechanically,
without thinking of what she was doing, with one fixed idea in her head:

"Suppose people were to know."

This continual feeling made her so incapable of reasoning that she did
not even try to think of any means of avoiding the disgrace that she
knew must ensue, which was irreparable and drawing nearer every day, and
which was as sure as death itself. She got up every morning long before
the others and persistently tried to look at her figure in a piece of
broken looking-glass, before which she did her hair, as she was very
anxious to know whether anybody would notice a change in her, and,
during the day, she stopped working every few minutes to look at herself
from top to toe, to see whether her apron did not look too short.

The months went on, and she scarcely spoke now, and when she was asked
a question, did not appear to understand; but she had a frightened
look, haggard eyes and trembling hands, which made her master say to her
occasionally: "My poor girl, how stupid you have grown lately."

In church she hid behind a pillar, and no longer ventured to go to
confession, as she feared to face the priest, to whom she attributed
superhuman powers, which enabled him to read people's consciences; and
at meal times the looks of her fellow servants almost made her faint
with mental agony; and she was always fancying that she had been found
out by the cowherd, a precocious and cunning little lad, whose bright
eyes seemed always