Into the hedgerow accordingly crept Eustacie, cowering close to a holly-tree at the very summit of the bank, and led by a strange fascination to choose a spot where, unseen herself, she could gaze down on the party who came clanking along the hollow road beneath.  Nearer, nearer, they came; and she shuddered with more of passion than of fear, as she beheld, not only her uncle in his best well-preserved green suit, but Narcisse, muddy with riding, though in his court braveries.  Suddenly they came to a halt close beneath her!  Was she detected?  Ah! just below was the spot where the road to the convent parted from the road to the farm; and, as Martin had apprehended, they were stopping for him.  The Chevalier ordered one of the armed men behind him to ride up to the farm and summon Martin to speak with him; and then he and his son, while waiting under the holly-bush, continued their conversation.

‘So that is the state of things!  A fine overthrow!’ quoth Narcisse.

’Bah! not at all.  She will soon be in our hands again.  I have spoken with, or written to, every governor of the cities she must pass through, and not one will abet the little runaway.  At the first barrier she is ours.’

‘Et puis?’

‘Oh, we shall have her mild as a sheep.’ (Eustacie set her teeth.) ’Every one will be in the same story, that her marriage was a nullity; she cannot choose but believe, and can only be thankful that we overlook the escapade and rehabilitate her.’

‘Thank you, my good uncle,’ almost uttered his unseen auditor.

’Well!  There is too much land down here to throw away; but the affair has become horribly complicated and distasteful.’

’No such thing.  All the easier.  She can no longer play the spotless saint—­get weak-minded priests on her side—­be all for strict convents.  No, no; her time for that is past!  Shut her up with trustworthy persons from whom she will hear nothing from without, and she will understand her case.  The child?  It will scarce be born alive, or at any rate she need not know whether it is.  Then, with no resource, no hope, what can she do but be too thankful for pardon, and as glad to conceal the past as we could wish?’

Eustacie clenched her fist.  Had a pistol been within her reach, the speaker’s tenure of life had been short!  She was no chastened, self-restrained, forgiving saint, the poor little thing, only a hot-tempered, generous, keenly-sensitive being, well-nigh a child in years and in impulses, though with the instincts of a mother awakening within her, and of a mother who heard the life of her unborn babe plotted against.  She was absolutely forced to hold her lips together, to repress the sobbing scream of fury that came to her throat; and the struggles with her gasping breath, the surging of the blood in her ears, hindered her from hearing or seeing anything for some seconds, though she kept her station.  By the time her