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Rosalie was silent for a moment, then she said: "Would you like me to come and see you?" "I should love to have you if you'll promise not to tell anyone where I live," said Perrine, delightedly. "I promise," said Rosalie, solemnly. "Well, when will you come?" "On Sunday I am going to see one of my aunts at Saint-Pipoy; on my way back in the afternoon I can stop...."
As she had tramped along the roads from Saint-Pipoy she had noticed that the harvest had commenced in the fields that were most exposed, and soon the mowers would come as far as her little nook, which was shaded by the big trees. She would certainly have to leave her tiny home; it would not be possible for her to live there longer.
"I not only slept there, but I worked there and I ate there, and I even gave a dinner to Rosalie, and she can tell you about it," said little Perrine eagerly, for now that she had told him her story she wanted him to know everything. "I did not leave the cabin until you sent for me to go to Saint-Pipoy, and then you told me to stay there so as to be on hand to interpret for the machinists.
"Without this little girl's help," he said, "we should have stood here waiting with our arms folded." Monsieur Fabry then looked at her, but he said nothing, and she on her side did not dare ask him what she had to do now, whether she was to stay at Saint-Pipoy or return to Maraucourt.
The call was so imperative that they all ran to the office together. "You are there?" asked the blind man; "Talouel, Theodore and Casimir?" All three replied together. "I have just learned of the death of my son," said their employer. "Stop work in all the factories immediately. Tomorrow the funeral services will be held in the churches at Maraucourt, Saint-Pipoy and all the other villages."
Finally she saw Talouel, who asked her roughly what she was doing there. "Monsieur Vulfran told me to come this morning to the office to see him," she said. "Outside there, is not the office," he said. "I was waiting to be called in," she replied. "Come up then." She went up the steps, following him in. "What did you do at Saint-Pipoy?" he asked, turning to look at her.
Above the tops of the poplars she could already see the great smoking chimneys of the factories of Saint-Pipoy. She knew that spinning and weaving were done here, the same as at Maraucourt, and, besides that, it was here that they manufactured red rope and string. But whether she knew that or not, it was nothing that would help her in the task before her. They turned the bend of the road.
"So then you are a comrade of ours, Mademoiselle," said Mombleux, who had not forgotten his humiliation at Saint-Pipoy, and he wanted to make the one who was the cause of it pay for it. She felt the sarcasm of his words and for a moment she was disconcerted, but she recovered herself quickly. "No, Monsieur," she said quietly, "not of yours but of William's."
"I am not accustomed to being afraid," she said, with a wan little smile flitting across her beautiful face. "You are speaking of that cabin in the valley there a little to the side of the road to Saint-Pipoy, on the left, are you not?" asked Monsieur Vulfran. "Yes, Monsieur." "That belongs to me and my nephews use it. Was it there that you slept?"
He led her into an office where M. Paindavoine was seated talking to the manager of the Saint-Pipoy works. "Here's the girl, sir," said William, holding his hat in his hand. "Very well; you can go," said his master. Without speaking to Perrine, M. Paindavoine made a sign to his manager to come nearer to him. Then he spoke to him in a low voice. The manager also dropped his voice to answer.
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