s Silvere began to question her she looked at him with childish
terror. Was he, then, going to stir up the ashes of those days now dead
and gone, and make her weep like her son Antoine had done?

"I don't know," she said in a hasty voice; "I no longer go out, I never
see anybody."

Silvere waited the morrow with considerable impatience. And as soon
as he got to his master's workshop, he drew his fellow-workmen into
conversation. He did not say anything about his interview with Miette;
but spoke vaguely of a girl whom he had seen from a distance in the
Jas-Meiffren.

"Oh! that's La Chantegreil!" cried one of the workmen.

There was no necessity for Silvere to question them further, for they
told him the story of the poacher Chantegreil and his daughter Miette,
with that unreasoning spite which is felt for social outcasts. The girl,
in particular, they treated in a foul manner; and the insulting gibe
of "daughter of a galley-slave" constantly rose to their lips like an
incontestable reason for condemning the poor, dear innocent creature to
eternal disgrace.

However, wheelwright Vian, an honest, worthy fellow, at last silenced
his men.

"Hold your tongues, you foul mouths!" he said, as he let fall the
shaft of a cart that he had been examining. "You ought to be ashamed of
yourselves for being so hard upon the child. I've seen her, the little
thing looks a very good girl. Besides, I'm told she doesn't mind work,
and already does as much as any woman of thirty. There are some lazy
fellows here who aren't a match for her. I hope, later on, that she'll
get a good husband who'll stop this evil talk."

Silvere, who had been chilled by the workmen's gross jests and insults,
felt tears rise to his eyes at the last words spoken by Vian. However,
he did not open his lips. He took up his hammer, which he had laid down
near him, and began with all his might to strike the nave of a wheel
which he was binding with iron.

In the evening, as soon as he had returned home from the workshop, he
ran to the wall and climbed upon it. He found Miette engaged upon the
same labour as the day before. He called her. She came to him, with her
smile of embarrassment, and the charming shyness of a child who from
infancy had grown up in tears.

"You're La Chantegreil, aren't you?" he asked her, abruptly.

She recoiled, she ceased smiling, and her eyes turned sternly black,
gleaming with defiance. So this lad was going to insult her, like th