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TWO more years went by, and during those two years yet another child, this time a boy, was born to Mathieu and Marianne. And on this occasion, at the same time as the family increased, the estate of Chantebled was increased also by all the heatherland extending to the east as far as the village of Vieux-Bourg. And this time the last lot was purchased, the conquest of the estate was complete.
And it seemed, too, that the love of childhood had revived, and was now bursting into consuming fire, so vividly did his cheeks glow, and so hotly did his eyes blaze as he thus recalled those distant times. "Poor Therese! We had been at daggers drawn for years, and all because one evening, on coming back from the fair at Vieux-Bourg, I pushed her into a pool of water where she dirtied her frock.
Chambouvet, a big, genial, kindly fellow, who had inherited his father's practice at Vieux-Bourg, where he lived in a large white house, which had become the resort of the poor. And thus the three girls being married, the only ones who remained with Mathieu and Marianne in the slowly emptying nest were their two last boys, Nicolas and Benjamin.
The train stopped at Janville, and then its rumble rose again, grew fainter, and died away in the direction of Vieux-Bourg. But she no longer paid attention to it. She now had eyes and ears only for the road which wound like a pale ribbon between the dark patches of corn. Her husband did not take ten minutes to cover the thousand yards and more which separated the station from the little bridge.
There is the expanse before us, those gentle slopes from Janville to Vieux-Bourg, that is another five hundred acres, which are left almost uncultivated on account of their dryness, the stony poverty of their soil. So it is all very simple.
And then, on Seguin's hands, there still remained nearly two hundred and fifty acres of woods in the direction of Lillebonne, together with the moorlands stretching to Vieux-Bourg, in which Lepailleur's few acres were enclosed. It was on the occasion of the visits which he paid Seguin in reference to these matters that Mathieu became acquainted with the terrible break-up of the other's home.
Charlotte remembered that she had heard Gregoire go downstairs again, almost immediately after entering his bedroom, and before the servants had even bolted the house-doors for the night. He had certainly rushed off to join Therese in some coppice, whence they must have hurried away to Vieux-Bourg station which the last train to Paris quitted at five-and-twenty minutes past midnight.
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