on which the last train to Paris quitted at five-and-twenty minutes
past midnight. And it was indeed this which had taken place. At noon the
Froments already learnt that Lepailleur was creating a terrible scandal
about the flight of Therese. He had immediately gone to the gendarmes
to shout the story to them, and demand that they should bring the guilty
hussy back, chained to her accomplice, and both of them with gyves about
their wrists.

He on his side had found a letter in his daughter's bedroom, a plucky
letter in which she plainly said that as she had been struck again the
previous day, she had had enough of it, and was going off of her own
free will. Indeed, she added that she was taking Gregoire with her, and
was quite big and old enough, now that she was two-and-twenty, to know
what she was about. Lepailleur's fury was largely due to this letter
which he did not dare to show abroad; besides which, his wife, ever
at war with him respecting their son Antonin, not only roundly abused
Therese, but sneeringly declared that it might all have been expected,
and that he, the father, was the cause of the gad-about's misconduct.
After that, they engaged in fisticuffs; and for a whole week the
district did nothing but talk about the flight of one of the Chantebled
lads with the girl of the mill, to the despair of Mathieu and Marianne,
the latter of whom in particular grieved over the sorry business.

Five days later, a Sunday, matters became even worse. As the search for
the runaways remained fruitless Lepailleur, boiling over with rancor,
went up to the farm, and from the middle of the road--for he did not
venture inside--poured forth a flood of ignoble insults. It so happened
that Mathieu was absent; and Marianne had great trouble to restrain
Gervais as well as Frederic, both of whom wished to thrust the miller's
scurrilous language back into his throat. When Mathieu came home in the
evening he was extremely vexed to hear of what had happened.

"It is impossible for this state of things to continue," he said to his
wife, as they were retiring to rest. "It looks as if we were hiding,
as if we were guilty in the matter. I will go to see that man in the
morning. There is only one thing, and a very simple one, to be done,
those unhappy children must be married. For our part we consent, is it
not so? And it is to that man's advantage to consent also. To-morrow the
matter must be settled."

On the following day, Monday, at