The day was magnificent; the air intensely hot. The rays of the August
sun fell with scorching violence upon the sandy soil, and withered the
few plants which had sprung up since the last rain.

The stillness was profound, almost terrible. Not a sound broke the
silence, not even the buzzing of an insect, nor a whisper of breeze in
the trees. All nature seemed sleeping. And on no side was there anything
to remind one of life, motion, or mankind.

This repose of nature, which contrasted so vividly with the tumult
raging in his own heart, exerted a beneficial effect upon Maurice.
These few moments of solitude afforded him an opportunity to regain his
composure, to collect his thoughts scattered by the storm of passion
which had swept over his soul, as leaves are scattered by the fierce
November gale.

With sorrow comes experience, and that cruel knowledge of life which
teaches one to guard one's self against one's hopes.

It was not until he heard the conversation of these peasants that
Maurice fully realized the horror of Lacheneur's position. Suddenly
precipitated from the social eminence which he had attained, he found,
in the valley of humiliations into which he was cast, only hatred,
distrust, and scorn. Both factions despised and denied him. Traitor,
cried one; thief, cried the other. He no longer held any social status.
He was the fallen man, the man who _had_ been, and who was no more.

Was not the excessive misery of such a position a sufficient explanation
of the strangest and wildest resolutions?

This thought made Maurice tremble. Connecting the stories of the
peasants with the words addressed to Chanlouineau at Escorval by M.
Lacheneur on the preceding evening, he arrived at the conclusion that
this report of Marie-Anne's approaching marriage to the young fanner was
not so improbable as he had at first supposed.

But why should M. Lacheneur give his daughter to an uncultured peasant?
From mercenary motives? Certainly not, since he had just refused an
alliance of which he had been proud in his days of prosperity. Could it
be in order to satisfy his wounded pride, then? Perhaps he did not wish
it to be said that he owed anything to a son-in-law.

Maurice was exhausting all his ingenuity and penetration in endeavoring
to solve this mystery, when at last, on a foot-path which crosses the
waste, a woman appeared--Marie-Anne.

He rose, but fearing observation, did not venture to leave the shelter
of the gr