The sun was high in the heavens when Prosper awoke.  As he opened his eyes and looked about him, while the two comrades were still snoring, he beheld their entertainer engaged in hitching a horse to a great carriole loaded with bread, rice, coffee, sugar, and all sorts of eatables, the whole concealed under sacks of charcoal, and a little questioning elicited from the good man the fact that he had two married daughters living at Raucourt, in France, whom the passage of the Bavarian troops had left entirely destitute, and that the provisions in the carriole were intended for them.  He had procured that very morning the safe-conduct that was required for the journey.  Prosper was immediately seized by an uncontrollable desire to take a seat in that carriole and return to the country that he loved so and for which his heart was yearning with such a violent nostalgia.  It was perfectly simple; the farmer would have to pass through Remilly to reach Raucourt; he would alight there.  The matter was arranged in three minutes; he obtained a loan of the longed-for blouse and trousers, and the farmer gave out, wherever they stopped, that he was his servant; so that about six o’clock he got down in front of the church, not having been stopped more than two or three times by the German outposts.

They were all silent for a while, then:  “No, I had enough of it!” said Prosper.  “If they had but set us at work that amounted to something, as out there in Africa! but this going up the hill only to come down again, the feeling that one is of no earthly use to anyone, that is no kind of a life at all.  And then I should be lonely, now that poor Zephyr is dead; all that is left me to do is to go to work on a farm.  That will be better than living among the Prussians as a prisoner, don’t you think so?  You have horses, Father Fouchard; try me, and see whether or not I will love them and take good care of them.”

The old fellow’s eyes gleamed, but he touched glasses once more with the other and concluded the arrangement without any evidence of eagerness.

“Very well; I wish to be of service to you as far as lies in my power; I will take you.  As regards the question of wages, though, you must not speak of it until the war is over, for really I am not in need of anyone and the times are too hard.”

Silvine, who had remained seated with Charlot on her lap, had never once taken her eyes from Prosper’s face.  When she saw him rise with the intention of going to the stable and making immediate acquaintance with its four-footed inhabitants, she again asked: 

“Then you say you did not see Honore?”

The question repeated thus abruptly made him start, as if it had suddenly cast a flood of light in upon an obscure corner of his memory.  He hesitated for a little, but finally came to a decision and spoke.

“See here, I did not wish to grieve you just now, but I don’t believe Honore will ever come back.”