There was silence.  Silvine was very white, and gazed at the men with unwinking, staring eyes.

“Those are things best not be talked too much about,” old Fouchard prudently declared.  “Your health, and good-night to you.”

They emptied the second bottle, and Prosper, who had returned from the stable, lent a hand to load upon the wheelbarrow, whence the dead sheep had been removed, the loaves that Silvine had placed in an old grain-sack.  But he turned his back and made no reply when his brother and the other two men, wheeling the barrow before them through the snow, stalked away and were lost to sight in the darkness, repeating: 

“Good-night, good-night! an plaisir!”

They had breakfasted the following morning, and Father Fouchard was alone in the kitchen when the door was thrown open and Goliah in the flesh entered the room, big and burly, with the ruddy hue of health on his face and his tranquil smile.  If the old man experienced anything in the nature of a shock at the suddenness of the apparition he let no evidence of it escape him.  He peered at the other through his half-closed lids while he came forward and shook his former employer warmly by the hand.

“How are you, Father Fouchard?”

Then only the old peasant seemed to recognize him.

“Hallo, my boy, is it you?  You’ve been filling out; how fat you are!”

And he eyed him from head to foot as he stood there, clad in a sort of soldier’s greatcoat of coarse blue cloth, with a cap of the same material, wearing a comfortable, prosperous air of self-content.  His speech betrayed no foreign accent, moreover; he spoke with the slow, thick utterance of the peasants of the district.

“Yes, Father Fouchard, it’s I in person.  I didn’t like to be in the neighborhood without dropping in just to say how-do-you-do to you.”

The old man could not rid himself of a feeling of distrust.  What was the fellow after, anyway?  Could he have heard of the francs-tireurs’ visit to the farmhouse the night before?  That was something he must try to ascertain.  First of all, however, it would be best to treat him politely, as he seemed to have come there in a friendly spirit.

“Well, my lad, since you are so pleasant we’ll have a glass together for old times’ sake.”

He went himself and got a bottle and two glasses.  Such expenditure of wine went to his heart, but one must know how to be liberal when he has business on hand.  The scene of the preceding night was repeated, they touched glasses with the same words, the same gestures.

“Here’s to your good health, Father Fouchard.”

“And here’s to yours, my lad.”