here is a steep
descent into the valley, and the road is bordered either by scattered
cottages or by an irregular hawthorn hedge. A little way on there is a
gap in this hedge, and looking down there is a long steep flight of
steps with wooden edges. At the foot stands a good-sized house divided
now into several cottages. The walls are half-timbered with wood set
crosswise in the plaster between two straight rows. Ladders, iron hoops
and a bird-cage hang against the wall, and over the door is a wooden
shelf with scarlet geraniums. There is a desolate garden divided into
three by a criss-cross fence and a hedge, and over the last a huge
orange citrouille has clambered and lies perched on the top.

Marie knows that Nicolas Marais sometimes lodges in one of the cottages,
but she knows too that the property belongs to Leon Roussel, and that he
lives close by. A blush comes to the girl's cheeks: she may see Leon
there. She stops and looks down: Elise Lesage is coming out of the
doorway, but she is talking over her shoulder to some one behind her.
Marie sees her put her fingers into one of the brown holland pockets,
pull out a note and give it to her companion.

Marie draws a deep breath: "How I wronged her! Ever since I gave her
that note I have felt anxious and troubled. She seems so spiteful to me
that I feared she might somehow get me into trouble with it, and yet I
don't know how."

There were footsteps coming along the road, but Marie did not look
round: in the quick revulsion of feeling toward Elise she was eager to
make atonement. She leaned on the hand-rail that went down the steps,
waiting for Mademoiselle Lesage: if she had listened she would have
noticed that the footsteps had come nearer and had suddenly ceased.

Nicolas Marais came forward out of the cottage, and then Elise looked up
and saw Marie. She smiled and nodded. "I am coming," she called up in
her rasping voice; and she did seem in high haste to get to Marie
Famette, but Marie saw that she looked beyond her at some one or
something else. The girl looked over her shoulder, and there was Leon
Roussel, but he did not care to look at her. His eyes were fixed sternly
on Nicolas Marais, but Nicolas did not seem to care for his employer's
anger: he was smiling rapturously up at Marie, and as she now looked at
him he first kissed his hand and then put the note to his lips and
kissed it twice.

Marie grew crimson. Elise, who had just reached the top of the s