What had he left?
What had he said?
He was very handsome, was he not?
Tender and diffident as a woman! Perhaps he might even have spoken of her! Ah, yes indeed! That was true, for he always talked of her.

Then she was very angry; yes, she certainly hated him, for at last she realised that he weighed on her breast too heavily.
But matters could not continue in this way for ever, a change must take place; and one May evening, at a wondrously beautiful nightfall, it came.

It was at the home of the Lemballeuse, the family who lived in the ruins of the mill.

There were only women there; the old grandmother, seamed with wrinkles but still active, her daughter, and her grandchildren.

Of the latter, Tiennette, the elder, was a large, wild-looking girl, twenty years of age, and her two little sisters, Rose and Jeanne, had already bold, fearless eyes, under their unkempt mops of red hair.