She was silent and lay back, gasping for breath, still
plucking at the sheets with her fingers.
Suzanne had hidden her face in her hands and did not
move. She was thinking of him whom she had loved
so long. What a life of happiness they might
have had together! She saw him again in the dim
and distant past-that past forever lost. Beloved
dead! how the thought of them rends the heart!
Oh! that kiss, his only kiss! She had retained
the memory of it in her soul. And, after that,
nothing, nothing more throughout her whole existence!
The priest rose suddenly and in a firm, compelling
voice said:
“Mademoiselle Suzanne, your sister is dying!”
Then Suzanne, raising her tear-stained face, put her
arms round her sister, and kissing her fervently,
exclaimed:
“I forgive you, I forgive you, little one!”
Throughout the whole countryside the Lucas farn, was
known as “the Manor.” No one knew
why. The peasants doubtless attached to this word,
“Manor,” a meaning of wealth and of splendor,
for this farm was undoubtedly the largest, richest
and the best managed in the whole neighborhood.
The immense court, surrounded by five rows of magnificent
trees, which sheltered the delicate apple trees from
the harsh wind of the plain, inclosed in its confines
long brick buildings used for storing fodder and grain,
beautiful stables built of hard stone and made to accommodate
thirty horses, and a red brick residence which looked
like a little chateau.
Thanks for the good care taken, the manure heaps were
as little offensive as such things can be; the watch-dogs
lived in kennels, and countless poultry paraded through
the tall grass.
Every day, at noon, fifteen persons, masters, farmhands
and the women folks, seated themselves around the
long kitchen table where the soup was brought in steaming
in a large, blue-flowered bowl.
The beasts-horses, cows, pigs and sheep-were fat,
well fed and clean. Maitre Lucas, a tall man
who was getting stout, would go round three times
a day, overseeing everything and thinking of everything.
A very old white horse, which the mistress wished
to keep until its natural death, because she had brought
it up and had always used it, and also because it
recalled many happy memories, was housed, through sheer
kindness of heart, at the end of the stable.
A young scamp about fifteen years old, Isidore Duval
by name, and called, for convenience, Zidore, took
care of this pensioner, gave him his measure of oats
and fodder in winter, and in summer was supposed to
change his pasturing place four times a day, so that
he might have plenty of fresh grass.
The animal, almost crippled, lifted with difficulty
his legs, large at the knees and swollen above the
hoofs. His coat, which was no longer curried,
looked like white hair, and his long eyelashes gave
to his eyes a sad expression.
