The week ended as it had begun, in continual torture. Sylvie grew
ingenious, and found refinements of tyranny with almost savage cruelty;
the red Indians might have taken a lesson from her. Pierrette dared not
complain of her vague sufferings, nor of the actual pains she now
felt in her head. The origin of her cousin's present anger was the
non-revelation of Brigaut's arrival. With Breton obstinacy Pierrette was
determined to keep silence,--a resolution that is perfectly explicable.
It is easy to see how her thoughts turned to Brigaut, fearing some
danger for him if he were discovered, yet instinctively longing to have
him near her, and happy in knowing he was in Provins. What joy to have
seen him! That single glimpse was like the look an exile casts upon
his country, or the martyr lifts to heaven, where his eyes, gifted with
second-sight, can enter while flames consume his body.

Pierrette's glance had been so thoroughly understood by the major's son
that, as he planed his planks or took his measures or joined his wood,
he was working his brains to find out some way of communicating with
her. He ended by choosing the simplest of all schemes. At a certain hour
of the night Pierrette must lower a letter by a string from her window.
In the midst of the girl's own sufferings, she too was sustained by the
hope of being able to communicate with Brigaut. The same desire was in
both hearts; parted, they understood each other! At every shock to
her heart, every throb of pain in her head, Pierrette said to herself,
"Brigaut is here!" and that thought enabled her to live without
complaint.

One morning in the market, Brigaut, lying in wait, was able to get near
her. Though he saw her tremble and turn pale, like an autumn leaf about
to flutter down, he did not lose his head, but quietly bought fruit of
the market-woman with whom Sylvie was bargaining. He found his chance
of slipping a note to Pierrette, all the while joking the woman with the
ease of a man accustomed to such manoeuvres; so cool was he in action,
though the blood hummed in his ears and rushed boiling through his veins
and arteries. He had the firmness of a galley-slave without, and the
shrinkings of innocence within him,--like certain mothers in
their moments of mortal trial, when held between two dangers, two
catastrophes.

Pierrette's inward commotion was like Brigaut's. She slipped the note
into the pocket of her apron. The hectic spots upon her cheekbones
t