to the sound of the distant hunters.
She saw Pille-Miche come out of the stable, accompanied by two peasants,
all three carrying bales of straw; these they spread on the ground in a
way to form a long bed of litter before the inhabited wing of the house,
parallel with the bank, bordered by dwarf trees.

"You're spreading straw as if you thought they'd sleep here! Enough,
Pille-Miche, enough!" said a low, gruff voice, which Francine
recognized.

"And won't they sleep here?" returned Pille-Miche with a laugh. "I'm
afraid the Gars will be angry!" he added, too low for Francine to hear.

"Well, let him," said Marche-a-Terre, in the same tone, "we shall have
killed the Blues anyway. Here's that coach, which you and I had better
put up."

Pille-Miche pulled the carriage by the pole and Marche-a-Terre pushed it
by one of the wheels with such force that Francine was in the barn and
about to be locked up before she had time to reflect on her situation.
Pille-Miche went out to fetch the barrel of cider, which the marquis had
ordered for the escort; and Marche-a-Terre was passing along the side of
the coach, to leave the barn and close the door, when he was stopped
by a hand which caught and held the long hair of his goatskin. He
recognized a pair of eyes the gentleness of which exercised a power of
magnetism over him, and he stood stock-still for a moment under their
spell. Francine sprang from the carriage, and said, in the nervous tone
of an excited woman: "Pierre, what news did you give to that lady and
her son on the road? What is going on here? Why are you hiding? I must
know all."

These words brought a look on the Chouan's face which Francine had never
seen there before. The Breton led his innocent mistress to the door;
there he turned her towards the blanching light of the moon, and
answered, as he looked in her face with terrifying eyes: "Yes, by my
damnation, Francine, I will tell you, but not until you have sworn on
these beads (and he pulled an old chaplet from beneath his goatskin)--on
this relic, which _you know well_," he continued, "to answer me truly
one question."

Francine colored as she saw the chaplet, which was no doubt a token
of their love. "It was on that," he added, much agitated, "that you
swore--"

He did not finish the sentence. The young girl placed her hand on the
lips of her savage lover and silenced him.

"Need I swear?" she said.

He took his mistress gently by the hand, looked at he