on the highway to Nant. And again Duchemin wondered...

Having rested, he picked himself up, found his road, a mere trail of
wagon tracks, and mindful of the cooling drinks to be had in the Café
de l'Univers, put his best foot foremost.

After a time something, call it instinct, impelled him to look back the
way he had come. Half a mile distant he saw the figure of a peasant
following the same road. Duchemin stopped and waited for the other to
come up, thinking to get a better look at him, perhaps some definite
information about the road and in particular as to his chances of
finding drinkable water. But when he stopped the man stopped, sat him
down upon a rock, filled a pipe, and conspicuously rested.

Duchemin gave an impatient gesture and moved on. After another mile he
glanced overshoulder again. The same peasant occupied the same relative
distance from him.

But if the fellow were following him with a purpose, he could readily
lose himself in that wild land before Duchemin could run him down; and
if, on the contrary, he proved to be only a peaceable wayfarer, he was
bound to be a dull companion on the road, and an unsavory one to boot.
So Duchemin did nothing to discourage his voluntary shadow; but looking
back from time to time, never failed to see that squat,
round-shouldered figure in the middle distance of the landscape,
following him with the doggedness of Fate. Toward evening, however, of
a sudden--between two glances--the fellow disappeared as completely and
mysteriously as if he had fallen or dived into an aven.

Thus definite mental irritation was added to the physical discomforts