And so, Yvonne grew to dreaming while the cows strayed. Once the Pere Bourron struck at her with a spade for her negligence, but missed.

Another night he beat her soundly for letting a cow get stalled in the mud. The days on the marsh now became interminable, for he worked for Gavelle, the carpenter, a good three _kilometres_ back of Pont du Sable and the two could see each other only on fete days when he met her secretly among the dunes or in the evenings near the farm. He would wait for her then at the edge of the woods skirting the misty sea of pasture that spread out below the farm like some vast and silent dry lake, dotted here and there with groups of sleeping cattle.

She saw Marianne but seldom now, for the latter fished mostly at the Three Wolves, sharing her catch with a crew of eight fishermen. Often they would seine the edge of the coast, their boat dancing off beyond the breakers while they netted the shallow water, swis.h.i.+ng up the hard beach--these gamblers of the sea. They worked with skill and precision, each one having his share to do, while one--the quickest--was appointed to carry their bundle of dry clothes rolled in a tarpaulin.

Marianne seemed of casual importance to her now. We seldom think of our best friends in time of love. Yvonne cried for his kisses which at first she did not wholly understand, but which she grew to hunger for, just as when she was little she craved for all she wanted to eat for once--and candy.

She began to think of herself, too--of Jean's scarlet cravat--of his new shoes too tight for him, which he wore with the pride of a village dandy on fete days and Sundays--and of her own patched and pitifully scanty wardrobe.

"She has nothing, that little one," she had heard the gossips remark openly before her, time and time again, when she was a child. Now that she was budding into womanhood and was physically twice as strong as Jean, now that she was conscious of _herself_, she began to know the pangs of vanity.

It was about this time that she bought the ribbon, just as Marianne had foretold, a red ribbon to match Jean's tie, and which she fas.h.i.+oned into a bow and kept in a paper box, well hidden in the straw of her bed. The patched skirt had long ago grown too short, and was now stuffed into a broken window beyond the cow manger to temper the draught from the neck of a sick bull.

She wore now, when it stormed, thick woollen stockings and sabots; and another skirt of the Mere Bourron's fastened around a chemise of coa.r.s.e homespun linen, its colour faded to a delicious pale mazarine blue, showing the strength and fullness of her body.

She had stolen down from the loft this night to meet him at the edge of the woods.

"Where is he?" were his first words as he sought her lips in the dark.

"He has gone," she whispered, when her lips were free.

"Where?"

"_Eh ben_, he went away with the Pere Detour to the village--madame is asleep."

"Ah, good!" said he.

"_Mon Dieu!_ but you are warm," she whispered, pressing her cheek against his own.

"I ran," he drawled, "the patron kept me late. There is plenty of work there now."

He put his arm around her and the two walked deeper into the wood, he holding her heavy moist hand idly in his own. Presently the moon came out, sailing high among the scudding clouds, flas.h.i.+ng bright in the clear intervals. A white mist had settled low over the pasture below them, and the cattle were beginning to move restlessly under the chill blanket, changing again and again their places for the night. A bull bellowed with all his might from beyond the mysterious distance. He had evidently scented them, for presently he emerged from the mist and moved along the edge of the woods, protected by a deep ditch. He stopped when he was abreast of them to bellow again, then kept slowly on past them.

They had seated themselves in the moonlight among the stumps of some freshly cut poplars.

"_Dis donc_, what is the matter?" he asked at length, noticing her unusual silence, for she generally prattled on, telling him of the uneventful hours of her days.

"Nothing," she returned evasively.

"_Mais si; bon Dieu!_ there _is_ something."

She placed her hands on her trembling knees.

"No, I swear there is nothing, Jean," she said faintly.

But he insisted.

"One earns so little," she confessed at length. "Ten sous a day, it is not much, and the days are so long on the marsh. If I knew how to cook I'd try and get a place like Emilienne."

"Bah!" said he, "you are crazy--one must study to cook; besides, you are not yet eighteen, the Pere Bourron has yet the right to you for a year."

"That is true," confessed the girl simply; "one has not much chance when one is an orphan. Listen, Jean."

"What?"

"Listen--is it true that thou dost love me?"

"Surely," he replied with an easy laugh.

"Listen," she repeated timidly; "if thou shouldst get steady work--I should be content ... to be..." But her voice became inaudible.

"_Allons!_... what?" he demanded irritably.

"To ... to be married," she whispered.

He started. "_Eh ben! en voila_ an idea!" he exclaimed.

"Forgive me, Jean, I have always had that idea----" She dried her eyes on the back of her hand and tried hard to smile. "It is foolish, eh? The marriage costs so dear ... but if thou shouldst get steady work..."

"_Eh ben!_" he answered slowly with his Normand shrewdness, "I don't say no."

"I'll help thee, Jean; I can work hard when I am free. One wins forty sous a day by was.h.i.+ng, and then there is the harvest."

There was a certain stubborn conviction in her words which worried him.

"_Eh ben!_" he said at length, "we might get married--that's so."

She caught her breath.

"Swear it, Jean, that thou wilt marry me, swear it upon Sainte Marie."

"_Eh voila_, it's done. _Oui_, by Sainte Marie!"

She threw her arms about him, crus.h.i.+ng him against her breast.

"_Dieu!_ but thou art strong," he whispered.

"Did I hurt thee?"

"No--thou art content now?"

"Yes--I am content," she sobbed, "I am content, I am content."

He had slipped to the ground beside her. She drew his head back in her lap, her hand pressed hard against his forehead.

"_Dieu!_ but I am content," she breathed in his ear.

He felt her warm tears dropping fast upon his cheek.