"I hope,
rested. Did you sleep well?"

Never afterwards did she know how she found courage to answer him as she
did, quietly and firmly:--

"Yes, very well, thank you. But my friend--he must have over-slept
himself--why is he not down?"

The old woman dropped a plate with a clatter and turned round. The man
looked Babette straight in the face as he replied, and she met his
glance with one just as steady.

"The pedlar is gone," he said, as he sugared his coffee carefully. "He
paid his bill and was off before seven. You will probably see him in
Brussels, for he was going there."

"Yes," repeated Babette, "I shall very likely meet him in Brussels, but
I don't even know his name. And I, too, good people, ought to be
starting. The morning is fine, and walking will be easy." She drank down
her coffee as she spoke and rose. "I cannot eat," she exclaimed, seeing
that they both looked suspiciously at the thick slice of currant-bread,
that lay untouched on her plate. "I think I am excited at the thought of
seeing my husband again. It seems so long since we parted, and now we
shall meet so soon."

In her own ears her voice sounded far away and unnatural, but they did
not seem to notice anything strange in her. The old woman, with a meek
"Thank you," took the humble payment she tendered, and they let her go;
only the big, burly eldest son stood at the door and watched her as she
went slowly down the little pathway and out through the creaking gate
into the snowy road. She only looked back once, and then she saw that a
dingy signboard hung in front of the house. The picture of what was
meant for a cow, and had once been white, was depicted on it, and the
words "A la Vache Blanche" were clumsily painted underneath. So the
house was an inn, evidently, and as Babette read the words she dimly
remembered having heard, long ago, that there was an inn of that name
not far from Brussels. It was kept by some people named Marac, whose
characters were anything but good, and who had been implicated in
several robberies that had taken place some years before, although the
utmost efforts of the police had failed to trace any crime directly
home to them.

"Oh, heavens! Why did I not see that sign last night?" the girl thought,
despairingly, as she trudged along the hard, frosty road. "It would have
saved his life and perhaps my reason."

She sped along faster and faster, for the house was now quite out of
sight. In the distance the way