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She got up.

“I will,” she said, and wiping her eyes, she began to walk again with the uncertain step of an elderly woman.

A little farther on the road passed beneath a clump of trees, which hid a few houses, and they could distinguish the vibrating and regular blows of a blacksmith’s hammer on the anvil; and presently they saw a wagon standing on the right side of the road in front of a low cottage, and two men shoeing a horse under a shed.

Monsieur d’Apreval went up to them.

“Where is Pierre Benedict’s farm?” he asked.

“Take the road to the left, close to the inn, and then go straight on; it is the third house past Poret’s. There is a small spruce fir close to the gate; you cannot make a mistake.”

They turned to the left. She was walking very slowly now, her legs threatened to give way, and her heart was beating so violently that she felt as if she should suffocate, while at every step she murmured, as if in prayer:

“Oh! Heaven! Heaven!”

Monsieur d’Apreval, who was also nervous and rather pale, said to her somewhat gruffly:

“If you cannot manage to control your feelings, you will betray yourself at once. Do try and restrain yourself.”

“How can I?” she replied. “My child! When I think that I am going to see my child.”

They were going along one of those narrow country lanes between farmyards, that are concealed beneath a double row of beech trees at either side of the ditches, and suddenly they found themselves in front of a gate, beside which there was a young spruce fir.

“This is it,” he said.

She stopped suddenly and looked about her. The courtyard, which was planted with apple trees, was large and extended as far as the small thatched dwelling house. On the opposite side were the stable, the barn, the cow house and the poultry house, while the gig, the wagon and the manure cart were under a slated outhouse. Four calves were grazing under the shade of the trees and black hens were wandering all about the enclosure.

All was perfectly still; the house door was open, but nobody was to be seen, and so they went in, when immediately a large black dog came out of a barrel that was standing under a pear tree, and began to bark furiously.

There were four bee-hives on boards against the wall of the house.

Monsieur d’Apreval stood outside and called out:

“Is anybody at home?”

Then a child appeared, a little girl of about ten, dressed in a chemise and a linen, petticoat, with dirty, bare legs and a timid and cunning look. She remained standing in the doorway, as if to prevent any one going in.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“Is your father in?”

“No.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“And your mother?”

“Gone after the cows.”

“Will she be back soon?”

“I don’t know.”

Then suddenly the lady, as if she feared that her companion might force her to return, said quickly:

“I shall not go without having seen him.”

“We will wait for him, my dear friend.”

As they turned away, they saw a peasant woman coming toward the house, carrying two tin pails, which appeared to be heavy and which glistened brightly in the sunlight.

She limped with her right leg, and in her brown knitted jacket, that was faded by the sun and washed out by the rain, she looked like a poor, wretched, dirty servant.

“Here is mamma,” the child said.

When she got close to the house, she looked at the strangers angrily and suspiciously, and then she went in, as if she had not seen them. She looked old and had a hard, yellow, wrinkled face, one of those wooden faces that country people so often have.

Monsieur d’Apreval called her back.

“I beg your pardon, madame, but we came in to know whether you could sell us two glasses of milk.”

She was grumbling when she reappeared in the door, after putting down her pails.