“What do you intend to do?” inquired Reine, gravely.

Claudet shrugged his shoulders.

“To work for my bread—­or, if I can find no suitable trade, enlist in a regiment.  I think I should not make a bad soldier.  Everything is going round and round in my head like a millwheel.  The first thing to do is to see about my mother, who is lamenting down there at the house—­I must find her a comfortable place to live.”

The young girl had become very thoughtful.

“Claudet,” replied she, “I know you are very proud, very sensitive, and could not wish to hurt your feelings.  Therefore, I pray you not to take in ill part that which I am going to say-in short, if you should get into any trouble, you will, I hope, remember that you have friends at La Thuiliere, and that you will come to seek us.”

The ‘grand chasserot’ reddened.

“I shall never take amiss what you may say to me, Reine!” faltered he; “for I can not doubt your good heart—­I have known it since the time when we played together in the cure’s garden, while waiting for the time to repeat the catechism.  But there is no hurry as yet; the heir will not arrive for several weeks, and by that time, I trust, we shall have had a chance to turn round.”

They had reached the boundary of the forest where the fields of La
Thuiliere begin.

By the last fading light of day they could distinguish the black outline of the ancient forge, now become a grange, and a light was twinkling in one of the low windows of the farm.

“Here you are at home,” continued Claudet, laying the bundle of nuts on the flat stone wall which surrounded the farm buildings; “I wish you good-night.”

“Will you not come in and get warm?”

“No; I must go back,” replied he.

“Good-night, then, Claudet; au revoir and good courage!”

He gazed at her for a moment in the deepening twilight, then, abruptly pressing her hands: 

“Thank you, Reine,” murmured he in a choking voice, “you are a good girl, and I love you very much!”

He left the young mistress of the farm precipitately, and plunged again into the woods.

CHAPTER II

THE HEIR TO VIVEY

While these events were happening at Vivey, the person whose name excited the curiosity and the conversational powers of the villagers—­Marie-Julien de Buxieres—­ensconced in his unpretentious apartment in the Rue Stanislaus, Nancy, still pondered over the astonishing news contained in the Auberive notary’s first letter.  The announcement of his inheritance, dropping from the skies, as it were, had found him quite unprepared, and, at first, somewhat sceptical.  He remembered, it is true, hearing his father once speak of a cousin who had remained a bachelor and who owned a fine piece of property in some corner of the Haute Marne; but, as all intercourse had long been broken off between the two families, M. de Buxieres the elder had mentioned the subject only in relation to barely possible hopes which had very little chance of being realized.  Julien had never placed any reliance on this chimerical inheritance, and he received almost with indifference the official announcement of the death of Claude Odouart de Buxieres.