e where I had a horse, and I always
managed to put several miles between myself and my pursuers. Catherine
used to bring me food during the night; if she did not find me I always
found the bread and wine in a hole covered with a rock."

This recollection of his wandering and criminal life, which might have
injured Farrabesche with some persons, met with the most indulgent pity
from Madame Graslin. She rode hastily on toward the Gabou, followed by
her guide. While she measured with her eye this opening, through which
could be seen the long valley, so smiling on one side, so ruined on the
other, and at its lower end, a league away, the terraced hill-sides back
of Montegnac, Farrabesche said:--

"There'll be a famous rush of water in a few days."

"And next year, on this day, not a drop shall flow there. Both sides
belong to me, and I will build a dam solid enough and high enough to
stop the freshet. Instead of a valley yielding nothing, I will have a
lake twenty, thirty, forty feet deep over an extent of three or four
miles,--an immense reservoir, which shall supply the flow of irrigation
with which I will fertilize the plain of Montegnac."

"Ah, madame! the rector was right, when he said to us as we finished our
road, 'You are working for a mother.' May God shed his blessing on such
an undertaking."

"Say nothing about it, Farrabesche," said Madame Graslin. "The idea was
Monsieur Bonnet's."

They returned to the cottage, where Veronique picked up Maurice, with
whom she rode hastily back to the chateau. When Madame Sauviat and Aline
saw her they were struck with the change in her countenance; the hope of
doing good in the region she now owned gave her already an appearance of
happiness. She wrote at once to Monsieur Grossetete, begging him to ask
Monsieur de Grandville for the complete release of the returned convict,
on whose conduct she gave him assurances which were confirmed by a
certificate from the mayor of Montegnac and by a letter from Monsieur
Bonnet. To this request she added information about Catherine Curieux,
begging Grossetete to interest the _procureur-general_ in the good work
she wished to do, and persuade him to write to the prefecture of police
in Paris to recover traces of the girl. The circumstance of Catherine's
having sent money to Farrabesche at the galleys ought to be clew enough
to furnish information. Veronique was determined to know why it was that
the young woman had not returned to her