CHAPTER XIII.

Thomas Lindet stood at his window thinking. One by one the lights died out in the town. A candle had been shining through the curtain in Madame Leroux’s bedroom for an hour, and now that was extinguished. The red glow of the forge at the corner had become fainter. For long it had shot a scarlet glare over the pavement, and had roared before the bellows. The clink on the anvil was hushed, the shutters were closed, and only a feeble glimmer shone through their chinks, and under the door. The watch had closed the tavern of the ‘Golden Cross.’ None traversed the square. Lindet saw a light still in Madame Aubin’s windows. She had a child ill, and was sitting up with it. There was a glimmer also from the window of M. François Corbelin, and the strains of a violin issued from his room. There was no moon now. The stars shone in the black vault above, and the priest fixed his eyes upon them.

Save for the violin, all was hushed; the frogs indeed trilled as usual, but the curé was so accustomed to the sound that he did not hear them, or rather did not know that his ear received their clamorous notes. Then suddenly he heard the baying of some hounds, distant, but approaching.

A moment after, Lindet saw a figure dart across the market-place, with extended arms, and rush to his door. Looking fixedly at the form, he distinguished it to be that of a woman. She struck at his door, and gasped, ‘Let me in! they are after me.’

‘Who are you, and what do you want?’ asked the curé from his window.

‘Oh! quick, let me in,’ she cried; ‘the dogs! the dogs!’

‘Who are you?’

‘I am Gabrielle----’ she broke off with a scream, for instantly from the street, out of which she had started, appeared the bloodhounds, baying and tracking her.

‘For God’s sake! or they will tear me!’ she cried.

Lindet flung himself down the stairs, tore the door open, beat off the dogs with a staff he snatched up, as the girl sprang in; then slammed and barred the door upon the brutes.

‘Have they hurt you?’

She could not answer; her breath was nearly gone.

‘Stay there,’ he said; ‘I will light a candle.’ He groped his way to the kitchen, felt for the tinder and steel, and struck a light. Having kindled from it a little lamp, he returned to the girl. She had sunk upon the ground beside the door, outside of which the hounds leaped and barked, and at which they attempted to burrow.

‘How came you here?’ asked the curé. He set down the lamp, and raised her from the floor in his arms.

‘I have escaped,’ she gasped. ‘I ran. They are after me.’

Voices were now heard without, calling off the dogs.

‘Bah! she has taken refuge with her dear friend the curé. I thought as much.’ The voice was that of Foulon.

‘Sacré!’ exclaimed Berthier; ‘I wish we had discovered her flight a little earlier. I wish the dogs had brought her down in the forest. Sacré! I wish----’

‘My dear good Berthier,’ said Foulon, ‘what is the use of wishing things to be otherwise than they are? always accept facts, and make the most of them. Gustave! take the dogs away. They make a confounded noise.’

‘Remain here,’ said Lindet, in an agitated voice; ‘I will go and summon Madame Pin, the old woman whose house this is. She is as deaf as a post.’

‘Do not go!’ pleaded Gabrielle, trembling; ‘perhaps they may get in. Wait, wait, to defend me.’

Lindet stood and listened to the voices outside. The dogs were collared and withdrawn. Foulon tapped at the door.

‘Do not open,’ entreated Gabrielle.

‘Well! Monsieur le Curé,’ said the old gentleman through the door; ‘sly priest! so the little rogue is with you? What will the bishop say? So late at night!’

The noise had attracted the musician to his window. The mother of the sick child had opened her casement, and was looking out. Madame Leroux started out of the dose into which she had fallen, and appeared at her garret window.

‘What is the matter?’ asked the musician.

‘Ah, M. Corbelin!’ exclaimed Foulon, in a loud voice; ‘what foxes these curés are! We have just seen one admit a young and pretty girl to his house. Hark! it is striking midnight. No wonder all the dogs in the town have been giving them a charivari.’ Then, in a low tone to Berthier, he said: ‘My good boy! I have served out our curé now, for having repeated in the pulpit certain observations I made in private. Those she-dragons yonder’--he pointed up at the windows--‘will have ruined Thomas Lindet for ever. Come, let us go home.’