The farmer's family were in despair at Madame Murville's flight. Since the day that Dufresne had been driven from the village, Adeline, buried in the most profound melancholy, had not left her home; she took no diversion whatever, and the solicitations of the peasants had failed to induce her to emerge from her retirement.
Jacques did not know what to think of his brother's conduct. He easily guessed that he made his wife unhappy; but he was still far from suspecting the extent of his misbehavior! Edouard's brother dared not question Adeline, but she read in his eyes his sympathy with her distress, and her grateful heart rewarded the honest laborer with the most sincere friendship. Every two days Jacques went to the village to enquire for Madame Murville's health. One morning when he rang as usual at the courtyard gate, the old gardener answered the bell, with tears in his eyes.
"What's the matter, Père Forêt, what has happened to Madame Murville now?" Jacques asked anxiously; "can it be that that scamp of the other day has come again?"
"Ah! my dear monsieur, more than one scamp has come to-day! And they have turned my mistress out of doors!"
"Turned her out! That isn't possible, ten thousand dead men!"
"No, no, monsieur, they were bailiffs, creditors, what do I know? They showed madame some papers, and told her that she wasn't in her own house any longer. Poor woman! she cried, but she didn't make any answer; she just did her clothes up in a bundle, took her daughter in her arms, and left."
"Left! She has gone away? Is it possible? The villain! he has reduced her to destitution!"
"Monsieur Jacques, I tell you there was a lot of them. Look, here's the placard; this house is for sale now, and they left me here, so that there might be some one to show it to people."
"Do you know where Madame Murville has gone?"
"Yes, no doubt she has gone to her husband; but look you, between ourselves, they say that he is a regular good-for-nothing; that he raises the devil at Paris; and you must agree, Monsieur Jacques, that when one has a pretty, good, young wife like madame--For, bless my soul, she is virtue and goodness personified! And then a child, which will be its mother's portrait; well, I say, when a man has all that, and forgets them all the year round, it ain't right, and it don't speak well for him."