* * * * * *

Then two more years rolled on.  And during those two years Mathieu and Marianne had yet another child, a girl.  And again, at the same time as the family increased, the estate of Chantebled was increased also—­on one side by five-and-seventy acres of woodland stretching over the plateau as far as the fields of Mareuil, and on the other by five-and-seventy acres of sloping moorland, extending to the village of Monval, alongside the railway line.  But the principal change was that, as the old hunting-box, the little dilapidated pavilion, no longer offered sufficient accommodation, a whole farmstead had to be erected—­stone buildings, and barns, and sheds, and stables, and cowhouses—­for farm hands and crops and animals, whose number increased at each enlargement of the estate.

It was the resistless conquest of life; it was fruitfulness spreading in the sunlight; it was labor ever incessantly pursuing its work of creation amid obstacles and suffering, ever making good all losses, and at each succeeding hour setting more energy, more health, and more joy in the veins of the world.

But during those two years, while Chantebled grew, while labor and worry and victory alternated, Mathieu suddenly found himself mixed up in a terribly tragedy.  He was obliged to come to Paris at times—­more often indeed than he cared—­now through his business relations with Seguin, now to sell, now to buy, now to order one thing or another.  He often purchased implements and appliances at the Beauchene works, and had thus kept up intercourse with Morange, who once more seemed a changed man.  Time had largely healed the wound left by his wife’s death, particularly as she seemed to live again in Reine, to whom he was more attached than ever.  Reine was no longer a child; she had become a woman.  Still her father hoped to keep her with him some years yet, while working with all diligence, saving and saving every penny that he could spare, in order to increase her dowry.

But the inevitable was on the march, for the girl had become the constant companion of Seraphine.  The latter, however depraved she might be, had certainly in the first instance entertained no idea of corrupting the child whom she patronized.  She had at first taken her solely to such places of amusement as were fit for her years and understanding.  But little by little the descent had come.  Reine, too, as she grew into a woman, amid the hours of idleness when she was left alone by her father—­who, perforce, had to spend his days at the Beauchene works—­developed an ardent temperament and a thirst for every frivolous pleasure.  And by degrees the once simply petted child became a participator in Seraphine’s own reckless and dissolute life.