solemnly that you will." He
hesitated for a few moments, and then said: "I swear it, by heaven."

Then she released her grasp, and went away, without another word.

She had no chance of speaking to him for several days, and as the stable
was now always locked at night, she was afraid to make any noise, for
fear of creating a scandal. One morning, however, she saw another man
come in at dinner-time, and so she said: "Has Jacques left?" "Yes," the
man replied; "I have got his place."

This made her tremble so violently that she could not take the saucepan
off the fire; and later when they were all at work, she went up into her
room and cried, burying her head in her bolster, so that she might not
be heard. During the day, however, she tried to obtain some information
without exciting any suspicions, but she was so overwhelmed by the
thoughts of her misfortune, that she fancied that all the people whom
she asked, laughed maliciously. All she learned, however, was, that he
had left the neighborhood altogether.

PART II

Then a cloud of constant misery began for her. She worked mechanically,
without thinking of what she was doing, with one fixed idea in her head:
"Suppose people were to know."

This continual feeling made her so incapable of reasoning, that she did
not even try to think of any means of avoiding the disgrace that she
knew must ensue, which was irreparable, and drawing nearer every day,
and which was as sure as death itself. She got up every morning long
before the others, and persistently tried to look at her figure in a
piece of broken looking-glass at which she did her hair, as she was very
anxious to know whether anybody would notice a change in her, and during
the day she stopped working every few minutes to look at herself from
top to toe, to see whether the size of her stomach did not make her
apron look too short.

The months went on, and she scarcely spoke now, and when she was asked
a question, she did not appear to understand, but she had a frightened
look, with haggard eyes and trembling hands, which made her master say
to her occasionally: "My poor girl, how stupid you have grown lately."

In church, she hid behind a pillar, and no longer ventured to go to
confession, as she feared to face the priest, to whom she attributed
superhuman powers, which enabled him to read people's consciences; and
at meal times, the looks of her fellow servants almost made her faint
with mental agony, and