omplete rest, and to sleep for
ever, and she got up with raised arms and took two steps forward. She
was in the water up to her thighs, and she was just about to throw
herself in, when sharp, pricking pains in her ankles made her jump back,
and she uttered a cry of despair, for, from her knees to the tips of her
feet, long, black leeches were sucking in her life blood, and were
swelling, as they adhered to her flesh. She did not dare to touch them,
and screamed with horror, so that her cries of despair attracted a
peasant, who was driving along at some distance, to the spot. He pulled
off the leeches one by one, applied herbs to the wounds, and drove the
girl to her master's farm, in his gig.

She was in bed for a fortnight, and as she was sitting outside the door
on the first morning that she got up, the farmer suddenly came and
planted himself before her. "Well," he said, "I suppose the affair is
settled, isn't it?" She did not reply at first, and then, as he remained
standing and looking at her intently with his piercing eyes, she said
with difficulty: "No, master, I cannot." But he immediately flew into a
rage.

"You cannot, girl; you cannot? I should just like to know the reason
why?" She began to cry, and repeated: "I cannot." He looked at her and
then exclaimed, angrily: "Then, I suppose you have a lover?" "Perhaps
that is it," she replied, trembling with shame.

The man got as red as a poppy, and stammered out in a rage: "Ah! So you
confess it, you slut! And pray, who is the fellow? Some penniless,
half-starved rag-a-muffin, without a roof to his head, I suppose? Who is
it, I say?" And as she gave him no answer, he continued: "Ah! So you
will not tell me. Then I will tell you; it is Jean Bauda?" "No, not he,"
she exclaimed. "Then it is Pierre Martin?" "Oh, no, master."

And he angrily mentioned all the young fellows in the neighborhood,
while she denied that he had hit upon the right one, and every moment
wiped her eyes with the corner of her big blue apron. But he still tried
to find it out, with his brutish obstinacy, and, as it were, scratched
her heart to discover her secret, just like a terrier scratches at a
hole, to try and get at the animal which he scents in it. Suddenly,
however, the man shouted: "By George! It is Jacques, the man who was
here last year. They used to say that you were always talking together,
and that you thought about getting married."

Rose was choking, and she grew scarlet, whi