careful covering of moss and dead leaves almost
concealed the part, she bent, and, kissing the sod,
murmured:

"Adieu, little angel; le bon Dieu has given
me one to replace thee!" Then, rising, she once
more sped onward, and was soon out of sight.

It was past mid-day when Jeanne awoke, with
a terrible dream of the dark woman.

She knew, the instant she found her child
gone, what had become of it; but that was
small guide, nor greater comfort. Wild and
desperate, all thought but that of recovering
the baby left her; she cared not who might
recognise her, who might know her disgrace;
could proclaiming it in the streets of Auray
have brought back what she had lost, willingly
would she have paid such a price for its restoration.
But what to do now? how to trace the
woman? In the horrible shock and confusion
of her senses, no definite plan at first presented
itself; but when, by a violent and determined
effort, she collected them, she saw the only
chance for her was to retrace her steps to where
the strollers had been assembled, and endeavour
from them to obtain some clue.

Turning backward, then, she rapidly
traversed the ground she had so wearily trodden
some hours before. A wayfarer, plodding
through the dust, paused to look after the
distracted woman, and a little boy herding goats
by the wayside crossed himself with mingled
fear and pity.

She came at last to the spot she sought; but
it was vacant. The brands yet smouldered on
the burnt turf, scraps of rags, and dirty paper,
and straw littered the ground, the grass still
lay crushed and trampled by the dusty feet.
But the wanderers were gone, and 'Jeanne
recollected with a feeling of agony that a little
further on, three roads branched off in different
directions, and that unless she could fall on
some accidental trace of their course the chances
were two to one against her taking the right
one. She traced the way back to where the
roads separated. The probabilities seemed
altogether in favour of their keeping the main road,
which led to Auray. In her despair she had just
decided on retracing her steps even thither,
when the figure of a man in the distance, coming
from that direction, raised a gleam of hope.
Hastily joining him, she asked him if he had
met the party she described. The man stared at
her, took off his hat, deliberately wiped his
face with the dirty coloured handkerchief it
contained, restored the handkerchief to the hat
and the hat to the head, and then replied in the
negative.

"Where had he come from? From far? From
beyond Auray-le-Clocher?"

He nodded.

"Then he must have seen them if they had
passed?"

"Probably."

"But there were so many of them, and they
looked so different to ordinary travellers; and
they had a van, with a white horse! He could
not be mistaken if he had seen them at all!"

The man shrugged his shoulders. " Savoir!
he had rested by the way, he might have slept,
they might have passed him while he was
asleep."

Jeanne could get nothing more out of him,
but still, maddening as was his stolidity, she
was disposed to gather from his replies that the
chances were against the travellers having taken
that route. She resolved to let chance guide her
steps, and therefore, with an instinctive shrinking
from the glare of the sun, chose the more
shady.

On, and on, and on, till her feet were blistered,
and her knees trembled, and her head throbbed.
On and on till sunset. On and on till nightfall.
No trace, no sign, no hope. Then she lay down
under a bank by the wayside, and felt so utterly
broken that she longed for death. But she was
too young and too strong for death to make so
easy a prey, and sheer exhaustion plunged her
into a sleep that lasted till the chill of the coming
dawn roused her, stiff and sore, covered with dust,
damp with dew, but having no thought beyond
that of continuing her search.

Thus for two days and two nights more
she wandered, and wandered in vain. Then,
with what little power of mind was still left
her, she decided to return to Auray, and rather
with the instinct that directs a dog on his
homeward way than by any more reasoned
process, she traced her route back to the presbytère
by the evening of the fourth day.

In vain Pierrette questioned her; in vain
Claude crept to her side and timidly looked up
in her haggard face. She had no answer to
give, but shook her head and rocked herself in
her chair, or stared blankly into the fire. The
curéhad gone for a game of billiards to the
Mairie, and Pierrette could only get her to go
passively to bed— all attempts to induce her
to touch food were vain—and sit by her till, to
get rid of the well-intentioned cares of her
cousin, Jeanne turned her face to the wall, and
pretended to sleep.

Some weeks went by, and Jeanne had fallen
into her usual course of duties; but quite
mechanically, and as one to whom nothing in life
could give a moment of interest or excitement.
Her state of mind was a sort of dull, lifeless
fatalism, that accepted all things as parts of a
crushing, relentless destiny, which she could
neither comprehend nor resist, and which she
could only bow under so long as her strength
lasted. But it was fated that she should be roused
from this condition, and in a startling manner.

She was arrested on a charge of infanticide.

At the trial the chain of evidence was
painfully conclusive. Her attachment to Eugène
Landry had been known, and her condition had,
for many weeks back, been more than suspected
in the village.

The widow Gausset was the principal witness
against her. This woman happened to be about
the house more than once at night during the
ensuing week; she had heard distinctly, in the
darkness and in the silence, the cries of a
newborn infant proceeding from the house; she