On coming to herself, the first name the widow uttered was that of Landry, to which Thibault replied with a hypocritical gesture of commiseration. Then the mistress of the mill began to sob. “Poor lad!” she cried, while the hot tears flowed down her cheeks, “what will become of him, so weak and delicate as he is? The mere weight of his gun and knapsack will kill him!”
Then turning to her guest, she continued:
“Ah! Monsieur Thibault, this is a terrible trouble to me, for you no doubt have perceived that I love him? He was gentle, he was kind, he had no faults; he was not a gambler, nor a drinker; he would never have opposed my wishes, would never have tyrannised over his wife, and that would have seemed very sweet to me after the two cruel years that I lived with the late M. Polet. Ah! Monsieur Thibault, Monsieur Thibault! It is a sad grief indeed for a poor miserable woman to see all her anticipations of future happiness and peace thus suddenly swallowed up!”
Thibault thought this would be a good moment to declare himself; whenever he saw a woman crying, he immediately thought, most erroneously, that she only cried because she wished to be consoled.
He decided, however, that he would not be able to attain his object without a certain circumlocution.
“Indeed,” he answered, “I quite understand your sorrow, nay, more than that, I share it with you, for you cannot doubt the affection I bear my cousin. But we must resign ourselves, and without wishing to deny Landry’s good qualities, I would still ask you, Madame, to find someone else who is his equal.”
“His equal!” exclaimed the widow, “there is no such person. Where shall I find so nice and so good a youth? It was a pleasure to me to look at his smooth young face, and with it all, he was so self-composed, so steady