He halted under the lee of a barn, and gave a low whistle.  At the sound, Lucette, a brown, sturdy young woman with a red handkerchief over her head, and another over her shoulders, came running round the corner of the barn, and whispered eagerly under her breath, ‘Ah!  Madame, Madame, what an honour!’ kissing Eustacie’s hand with all her might as she spoke; ’but, alas!  I fear Madame cannot come into the house.  The questing Brother Francois—­plague upon him!—­ has taken it into his head to drop in to breakfast.  I longed to give him the cold shoulder, but it might have brought suspicion down.’

‘Right, good woman,’ said Martin; ’but what shall Madame do?  It is broad way, and no longer safe to run the lanes!’

‘Give me a distaff,’ said Eustacie, rising to the occasion; ’I will go to that bushy field, and herd the cows.’

Madame was right, the husband and wife unwillingly agreed.  There, in her peasant dress, in the remote field, sloping up into a thick wood, she was unlikely to attract attention; and though the field was bordered on one side by the lane leading to the road to Paris, it was separated from it by a steep bank, crowned by one of the thick hedgerows characteristic of the Bocage.

Here, then, they were forced to leave her, seated on a stone beneath a thorn-bush, distaff in hand, with bread, cheese, and a pitcher of milk for her provisions, and three or four cows grazing before her.  From the higher ground below the wood of ash and hazel, she could see the undulating fields and orchards, a few houses, and that inhospitable castle of her own.

She had spent many a drearier day in the convent than this, in the free sun and air, with the feeling of liberty, and unbounded hopes founded on this first success.  She told her beads diligently, trusting that the tale of devotions for her husband’s spirit would be equally made up in the field as in the church, and intently all day were her ears and eyes on the alert.  Once Lucette visited her, to bring her a basin of porridge, and to tell her that all the world at the convent was in confusion, that messengers had been sent out in all directions, and that M. le Chevalier had ridden out himself in pursuit; but they should soon hear all about it, for Martin was pretending to be amongst the busiest, and he would know how to turn them away.  Again, much later in the day, Martin came striding across the field, and had just reached her, as she sat in the hedgerow, when the great dog who followed him pricked his ears, and a tramping and jingling was audible in the distance in the lane.  Eustacie held up her finger, her eyes dilating.

’It must be M. le Chevalier returning.  Madame must wait a little longer.  I must be at home, or they may send out to seek me here, and that would be ruin.  I will return as soon as it is safe, if Madame will hide herself in the hedgerow.’