"A rat!" she answered, breathless. And she aimed another blow at it.

"Where?" he asked, fretfully. "Where is it?" He snatched his stool,
too, and at that moment a rat darted out of the straw, ran nimbly
between his legs, and plunged into a hole by the door. He flung the
wooden stool after it; but, of course, in vain. "It was a rat!" he
said, as if before he had doubted it.

"Thank God!" she muttered. She was shaking all over.

He stared at her in stupid wonder. What did she mean? What had come to
her? "Have you had a sunstroke, my girl?" he said, suspiciously.

Her nut-brown face was a shade less brown than usual, but she met his
eyes boldly, and said: "No," adding an explanation which for the
moment satisfied him. But he did not sit down again. When she went out
he went out also. And though, as she retired slowly to the rye fields
and work, she repeatedly looked back at him, it was always to find his
eyes upon her. When this had happened half a dozen times, a thought
struck him. "How now?" he muttered. "The rat ran out of the straw!"

Nevertheless he still stood gazing after her, with a cunning look upon
his features, until she disappeared over the edge of the rift, and
then he crept back to the door of the barn, and stole in out of the
sunlight into the cool darkness of the raftered building, across which
a dozen rays of light were shooting, laden with dancing motes. Inside
he stood stock still until he had regained the use of his eyes, and
then he began to peer round him. In a moment he found what he sought.
Half upon, and half hidden by, the straw, lay a young man, in the deep
sleep of utter exhaustion. His face, which bore traces of more than
common beauty, was now white and pinched; his hair hung dank about his
forehead. His clothes were in rags; and his feet, bound up in pieces
torn at random from his blouse, were raw and bleeding. For a short
while Michel Tellier bent over him, remarking these things with
glistening eyes. Then the peasant stole out again. "It is five
crowns!" he muttered, blinking in the sunlight. "Ha, ha! Five
crowns!"

He looked round cautiously, but could see no sign of his wife; and
after hesitating and pondering a minute or two, he took the path
for Carbaix, his native astuteness leading him to saunter slowly
along in his ordinary fashion. After that the moorland about the
cottage lay seemingly deserted. Thrice, at intervals, the girl
dragged home her load of straw, but each time she