to her.

She did not dare to take his hand lest her feelings should overcome her;
so with an assumed gaiety she put in it a rose from her basket and said:

"He has been pilfering. Also he was insolent. I suppose he could not
help remembering that I lived at the smithy once--the dear smithy," she
added softly.

"I will go at once and pay the scoundrel his wages," said the Seigneur,
rising, and with a nod to the Cure and his wife opened the door.

"Do not see him yourself, Louis," said Madelinette. "Not I. Havel shall
pay him and he shall take himself off to-morrow morning."

The door closed, and Madelinette was left alone with the Cure. She came
to him and said with a quivering in her voice:

"He mocked Louis."

"It is well that he should go. He is a bad man and a bad servant. I
know him too well."

"You see, he keeps saying"--she spoke very slowly--"that he witnessed
a will the Seigneur made in favour of Monsieur Fournel. He thinks us
interlopers, I suppose."

The Cure put a hand on hers gently. "There was a time when I felt that
Monsieur Fournel was the legal heir to the Seigneury, for Monsieur de la
Riviere had told me there was such a will; but since then I have changed