Joe had vanished, and no Maurice had returned in the darkness as she
had fondly hoped he would the night before. The candle had shed its
tiny ray and burned itself out in vain. The little wanderer had not
come back.
Cecile sat up with a weary sigh; her head ached, she felt cold and
chilly. Then a queer fancy, joined to a trembling kind of hope, came
over her. That farm with the English frontage; that fair child with
the English face. Suppose those people were really English? Suppose
she went to them and asked them to help her to look for Maurice, and
suppose, while seeking for her little brother, she obtained a clew to
another and more protracted search?
Cecile thought and thought, and though her temples throbbed with
pain, and she trembled from cold and weariness, the longing to get as
near as possible to this farm, where English people might dwell,
became too great and strong to be resisted.
She rose somewhat languidly, and, calling Toby, went out into the
forest. Here the fresher air revived her, and the exercise took off a
growing sensation of heavy illness. She walked quickly, and as she
did so her hopes became more defined.
The farm Cecile meant to reach lay about a mile from the village of
Bolleau. It was situated on a pretty rise of ground to the very
borders of the forest. Cecile, walking quickly, reached it before
long; then she stood still, leaning over the paling and looking
across the enchanted ground. This paling in itself was English, and
the very strut of the barn-door fowl reminded her of Warren's Grove.
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