wait, and I heard him talking to somebody else. Then he came back
to the window, and asked me if there was anybody with me. He asked me
how old I was; and when I said I was thirteen, he said I must be a
brave girl to come through the wood alone at night. He remained
leaning out of the window a moment, trying to see my face, which was
looking up towards him. Then he turned his head to right and left
trying to look into the darkness of the wood, and advised me to go on a
little further. There was a village at the other side of the wood, he
said, and I should find houses there where I could dry my clothes.

I went on into the night. The moon had hidden itself altogether, and a
drizzling rain was falling. I had to walk a long time before I got to
the village. All the houses were shut up, and I could hardly see them
in the dark. A blacksmith was the only person up. When I got to his
house I went up the two steps, meaning to rest there. He was busy with
a great iron bar, which he was heating in a fire of red coal, and when
his arm went up with the bellows he looked like a giant. Every time
the bellows came down the coal flew up and crackled. That made a
glimmering light which lit up the walls, on which scythes, saws, and
all kinds of knives were hanging. The man's forehead was wrinkled, and
he was staring at the fire. I dared not talk to him, and I went away
without making any noise.

When it became quite light I saw that I was not very far from the town.
I began to recognize the places where Sister Marie-Aimйe used to take
us when we went for our walks. I was walking very slowly now, and
dragged my feet after me because they hurt me. I was so tired that it
was all I could do not to sit down on one of the heaps of stone which
were on each side of the road.

The sound of a horse and cart rattling along the road as fast as they
could go made me turn round, and I remained standing quite still with
my heart beating fast. I had recognized the bay mare and the farmer's
black beard. He stopped the mare quite close to me, leaned out of the
cart, and lifted me up into it by the belt of my dress. He sat me down
next to him on the seat, turned the horse round and drove off again at
full speed. When we got to the wood Master Silvain made the horse slow
down. He turned to me, looked at me, and said, "It is lucky for you
that I caught you up. Otherwise you would have been brought back to
the farm between two gensdarmes." As I didn't answer, he said again,
"Perhaps you don't know that there are gensdarmes who bring little
girls back, when they run away." I said, "I want to go and see Sister
Marie-Aimйe." "Are you unhappy with us?" he asked. I said again, "I
want to go and see Sister Marie-Aimйe." He looked as though he didn't
understand, and went on asking me questions, going over the names of
everybody on the farm, and asking me if they were kind to me. I made
the same answer every time. At last he lost patience with me, sat
straight up, and said, "What an obstinate child." I looked up at him
and said that I should run away again if he would not take me to Sister
Marie-Aimйe. I went on looking at him, waiting for an answer, and I
could see quite well that he didn't know what to say. He kept still,
and thought for several minutes. Then he put his hand on my knee and
said, "Listen to me, child, and try and understand what I am going to
tell you." And when he had finished speaking I understood that he had
promised to keep me until I was eighteen without ever letting me go to
the town. I understood, too, that the Mother Superior could do what
she liked with me, and that if I ran away again she would have me
locked up, because I ran about the woods during the night. Then the
farmer said that he hoped I should forget the convent and that I should
grow fond of him, and of his wife, because they wished me to be happy
with them. I was very miserable, and it was