THE DEVIL'S POOL
"Yes, surely; but she, too, has gone already."
"What! gone? Did she not have a child with her?"
"Yes, a little boy who cried. They both went away after they had been here two hours."
"Went away! Where?"
"Where they came from, I suppose. I did n't ask them."
"But why did they go away?" asked Germain, growing more and more uneasy.
"How the deuce do I know?"
"Did they not agree about wages? Yet that must have been settled before."
"I can tell you nothing about it. I saw them come and go, nothing more."
Germain walked toward the farm and questioned the farmer. Nobody could give him an explanation; but after speaking with the farmer, he felt sure that the girl had gone without saying a word, and had taken the weeping child with her.
"Can they have been ill-treating my son?" cried Germain.
"It was your son, then? How did he happen to be with the little girl? Where do you come from, and what is your name?"
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