Duchemin wondered if he ought to feel complimented.  Then he looked up the valley and saw, far off, a tiny cloud of dust kicked up by the heels of the horse ridden by the boy from the auberge, making good time on the highway to Nant.  And again Duchemin wondered...

Having rested, he picked himself up, found his road, a mere trail of wagon tracks, and mindful of the cooling drinks to be had in the Cafe de l’Univers, put his best foot foremost.

After a time something, call it instinct, impelled him to look back the way he had come.  Half a mile distant he saw the figure of a peasant following the same road.  Duchemin stopped and waited for the other to come up, thinking to get a better look at him, perhaps some definite information about the road and in particular as to his chances of finding drinkable water.  But when he stopped the man stopped, sat him down upon a rock, filled a pipe, and conspicuously rested.

Duchemin gave an impatient gesture and moved on.  After another mile he glanced overshoulder again.  The same peasant occupied the same relative distance from him.

But if the fellow were following him with a purpose, he could readily lose himself in that wild land before Duchemin could run him down; and if, on the contrary, he proved to be only a peaceable wayfarer, he was bound to be a dull companion on the road, and an unsavory one to boot.  So Duchemin did nothing to discourage his voluntary shadow; but looking back from time to time, never failed to see that squat, round-shouldered figure in the middle distance of the landscape, following him with the doggedness of Fate.  Toward evening, however, of a sudden—­between two glances—­the fellow disappeared as completely and mysteriously as if he had fallen or dived into an aven.

Thus definite mental irritation was added to the physical discomforts he suffered.  For if anything it was hotter on the high causse than it had been in the valley.  An intermittent breeze imitated to vicious perfection draughts from a furnace.  And if this were a short cut to Nant, Duchemin’s judgment was gravely at fault.

Otherwise the journey was not unlike an exaggerated version of his walk from Meyrueis to Montpellier-le-Vieux, except that the road was clearly marked and he found less climbing to do.  He saw neither hamlets nor farmsteads, and found no water.  By the middle of the afternoon his thirst had become sheer torture.

In dusk of evening he stumbled down into the valley again and struck the river road about midway between the Chateau de Montalais and Nant.  At this junction several dwellings clustered, in that fading light dark masses on either side of the road.  Duchemin noticed a few shadowy shapes loitering about, but was too far gone in fatigue and thirst to pay them any heed.  He had no thought but to stop at the first house and beg a cup of water.  As he lifted a hand to knuckle the door he was attacked.