rn down the street.
Many of the women were at their doors, and he stopped to speak to first
one and then another. I guessed what he wanted. There was no inn in the
valley, and he was trying to hire a lodging for the night. But Jean was
following him closely, and from every house he was turned away, baffled
and disappointed. He looked weary and bent, and he leaned heavily upon
the strong stick he carried. At last he passed slowly out of sight, and
once more I could breathe freely.

But I could not bring myself to venture downstairs, where the
uncurtained windows were level with the court, and the unfastened door
opened to my hand. The night fell while I was still alone, unnerved by
the terror I had undergone. Here and there a light glimmered in a
lattice-window, but a deep silence reigned, with no other sound than the
brilliant song of a nightingale amid the trees which girdled the
village. Suddenly there was the noisy rattle of wheels over the rough
pavement--the baying of dogs--an indistinct shout from the few men who
were still smoking their pipes under the broad eaves of their houses. A
horrible dread took hold of me. Was it possible that he returned, with
some force--I knew not what--which should drag me away from my refuge,
and give me up to him? What would Jean and the villagers do? What could
they do against a body of _gendarmes_?

I gazed shrinkingly into the darkness. The conveyance looked, as far as
I could make out of its shape, very like the _char-a-banc_, which was
not to return from Noireau till the next day. But there was only the
gleam of the lantern it carried on a pole rising above its roof, and
throwing crossbeams of light upon the walls and windows on each side of
the street. It came on rapidly, and passed quickly out of my sight round
the angle of the presbytery. My heart scarcely beat, and my ear was
strained to catch every sound in the house below.

I heard hurried footsteps and joyous voices. A minute or two afterward,
Minima beat against my barricaded door, and shouted gleefully through
the key-hole:

"Come down in a minute, Aunt Nelly," she cried; "Monsieur Laurentie is
come home again!"

CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH.

PIERRE'S SECRET.

I felt as if some strong hand had lifted me out of a whirl of troubled
waters, and set me safely upon a rock. I ran down into the _salon_,
where Monsieur Laurentie was seated, as tranquilly as if he had never
been away, in his high-backed arm-chair, s