They, were waiting for an opportunity to talk to their parents about it.

But, all at once, she stopped coming to meet him at the usual hour.  He did not even see her as he wandered round the farm.  He could only catch a glimpse of her at mass on Sunday.  And one Sunday, after the sermon, the priest actually published the banns of marriage between Victoire-Adelaide Martin and Josephin-Isidore Vallin.

Benoist felt a sensation in his hands as if the blood had been drained off.  He had a buzzing in the ears; and could hear nothing; and presently he perceived that his tears were falling on his prayer book.

For a month he stayed in his room.  Then he went back to his work.

But he was not cured, and it was always in his mind.  He avoided the roads that led past her home, so that he might not even see the trees in the yard, and this obliged him to make a great circuit morning and evening.

She was now married to Vallin, the richest farmer in the district.  Benoist and he did not speak now, though they had been comrades from childhood.

One evening, as Benoist was passing the town hall, he heard that she was enceinte.  Instead of experiencing a feeling of sorrow, he experienced, on the contrary, a feeling of relief.  It was over, now, all over.  They were more separated by that than by her marriage.  He really preferred that it should be so.

Months passed, and more months.  He caught sight of her, occasionally, going to the village with a heavier step than usual.  She blushed as she saw him, lowered her head and quickened her pace.  And he turned out of his way so as not to pass her and meet her glance.

He dreaded the thought that he might one morning meet her face to face, and be obliged to speak to her.  What could he say to her now, after all he had said formerly, when he held her hands as he kissed her hair beside her cheeks?  He often thought of those meetings along the roadside.  She had acted horridly after all her promises.

By degrees his grief diminished, leaving only sadness behind.  And one day he took the old road that led past the farm where she now lived.  He looked at the roof from a distance.  It was there, in there, that she lived with another!  The apple trees were in bloom, the cocks crowed on the dung hill.  The whole dwelling seemed empty, the farm hands had gone to the fields to their spring toil.  He stopped near the gate and looked into the yard.  The dog was asleep outside his kennel, three calves were walking slowly, one behind the other, towards the pond.  A big turkey was strutting before the door, parading before the turkey hens like a singer at the opera.

Benoist leaned against the gate post and was suddenly seized with a desire to weep.  But suddenly, he heard a cry, a loud cry for help coming from the house.  He was struck with dismay, his hands grasping the wooden bars of the gate, and listened attentively.  Another cry, a prolonged, heartrending cry, reached his ears, his soul, his flesh.  It was she who was crying like that!  He darted inside, crossed the grass patch, pushed open the door, and saw her lying on the floor, her body drawn up, her face livid, her eyes haggard, in the throes of childbirth.