His voice shook a little when he spoke; but it cleared, and began to ring, before he had said a dozen words.
"I'll never forget what you've said and done this morning, Virginie Poucette," he declared; "and if I break the back of the trouble that's in my way, and come out cock o' the walk again"-- the gold Cock of Beaugard in the ruins near and the clarion of the bantam of his barnyard were in his mind and ears--"it'll be partly because of you.

I hug that thought to me." "I could do a good deal more than that," she ventured, with a tremulous voice, and then she took her warm hand from his nervous grasp, and turned sharply into the path which led back towards the Manor.

She did not turn around, and she walked quickly away.
There was confusion in her eyes and in her mind.

It would take some time to make the confusion into order, and she was now hot, now cold, in all her frame, when at last she climbed into her wagon.
This physical unrest imparted itself to all she did that day.

First her horses were driven almost at a gallop; then they were held down to a slow walk; then they were stopped altogether, and she sat in the shade of the trees on the road to her home, pondering--whispering to herself and pondering.
As her horses were at a standstill she saw a wagon approaching.
Instantly she touched her pair with the whip, and moved on.