The marks were plainly seen of a body lying at full length on the sandy path.
"The footprints which have entered the wood are those of some one who wore knitted soles," said the abbe.
"A woman, then," said the countess.
"Down there, by the broken pitcher, are the footsteps of a man," added Michaud.
"I don't see traces of any other foot," said the abbe, who was tracking into the wood the prints of the woman's feet.
"She must have been lifted and carried into the wood," cried Michaud.
"That can't be, if it is really a woman's foot," said Blondet.
"It must be some trick of that wretch, Nicolas," said Michaud."He has been watching La Pechina for some time.Only this morning I stood two hours under the bridge of the Avonne to see what he was about.A woman may have helped him."
"It is dreadful!" said the countess.
"They call it amusing themselves," added the priest, in a sad and grieved tone.
"Oh! La Pechina would never let them keep her," said the bailiff; "she is quite able to swim across the river.I shall look along the banks.
Go home, my dear Olympe; and you gentlemen and madame, please to follow the avenue towards Conches."
"What a country!" exclaimed the countess.
"There are scoundrels everywhere," replied Blondet.
"Is it true, Monsieur l'abbe," asked Madame de Montcornet, "that I saved the poor child from the clutches of Rigou?"
"Every young girl over fiften years of age whom you may protect at the chateau is saved from that monster," said the abbe."In trying to get possession of La Pechina from her earliest years, the apostate sought to satisfy both his lust and his vengeance.When I took Pere Niseron as sexton I told him what Rigou's intentions were.That is one of the causes of the late mayor's rancor against me; his hatred grew out of it.Pere Niseron said to him solemnly that he would kill him if any harm came to Genevieve, and he made him responsible for all attempts upon the poor child's honor.I can't help thinking that this pursuit of Nicolas is the result of some infernal collusion with Rigou, who thinks he can do as he likes with these people."
"Doesn't he fear the law?"
"In the first place, he is father-in-law of the prosecuting-attorney,"
said the abbe, pausing to listen."And then," he resumed, "you have no conception of the utter indifference of the rural police to what is done around them.So long as the peasants do not burn the farm-houses and buildings, commit no murders, poison no one, and pay their taxes, they let them do as they like; and as these people are not restrained by any religious principle, horrible things happen every day.On the other side of the Avonne helpless old men are afraid to stay in their own homes, for they are allowed nothing to eat; they wander out into the fields as far as their tottering legs can bear them, knowing well that if they take to their beds they will die for want of food.
Monsieur Sarcus, the magistrate, tells me that if they arrested and tried all criminals, the costs would ruin the municipality."
"Then he at least sees how things are?" said Blondet.
"Monseigneur thoroughly understands the condition of the valley, and especially the state of this district," continued the abbe."Religion alone can cure such evils; the law seems to me powerless, modified as it is now--"
The words were interrupted by loud cries from the woods, and the countess, preceded by Emile and the abbe, sprang bravely into the brushwood in the direction of the sounds.