I gazed shrinkingly into the darkness.  The conveyance looked, as far as I could make out of its shape, very like the char-a-banc, which was not to return from Noireau till the next day.  But there was only the gleam of the lantern it carried on a pole rising above its roof, and throwing crossbeams of light upon the walls and windows on each side of the street.  It came on rapidly, and passed quickly out of my sight round the angle of the presbytery.  My heart scarcely beat, and my ear was strained to catch every sound in the house below.

I heard hurried footsteps and joyous voices.  A minute or two afterward, Minima beat against my barricaded door, and shouted gleefully through the key-hole: 

“Come down in a minute, Aunt Nelly,” she cried; “Monsieur Laurentie is come home again!”

CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH.

PIERRE’S SECRET.

I felt as if some strong hand had lifted me out of a whirl of troubled waters, and set me safely upon a rock.  I ran down into the salon, where Monsieur Laurentie was seated, as tranquilly as if he had never been away, in his high-backed arm-chair, smiling quietly at Minima’s gambols of delight, which ended in her sitting down on a tabouret at his feet.  Jean stood just within the door, his hands behind his back, holding his white cotton cap in them:  he had been making his report of the day’s events.  Monsieur held out his hand to me, and I ran to him, caught it in both of mine, bent down my face upon it, and burst into a passion of weeping, in spite of myself.

“Come, come, madame!” he said, his own voice faltering a little, “I am here, my child; behold me!  There is no place for fear now.  I am king in Ville-en-bois.—­Is it not so, my good Jean?”

“Monsieur le Cure, you are emperor,” replied Jean.

“If that is the case,” he continued, “madame is perfectly secure in my castle.  You do not ask me what brings me back again so soon.  But I will tell you, madame.  At Noireau, the proprietor of the omnibus to Granville told me that an Englishman had gone that morning to visit my little parish.  Good!  We do not have that honor every day.  I ask him to have the goodness to tell me the Englishman’s name.  It is written in the book at the bureau.  Monsieur Fostere.  I remember that name well, very well.  That is the name of the husband of my little English daughter.  Fostere!  I see in a moment it will not do to proceed, on my voyage.  But I find that my good Jacques has taken on the char-a-banc a league or two beyond Noireau, and I am compelled to await his return.  There is the reason that I return so late.”

“O monsieur!” I exclaimed, “how good you are—­”

“Pardon, madame,” he interrupted, “let me hear the end of Jean’s history.”

Jean continued his report in his usual phlegmatic tone, and concluded with the assurance that he had seen the Englishman safe out of the village, and returning by the road he came.