In the full blaze of an August afternoon Louis Blanc made Barbe take him up the hill to the Bois du Renard. They had locked up the buvette, and the red-haired girl led Bibi by the hand along the field-path to the wood. Her head shone like a piece of red metal close to the blackness of the man’s coat; she had to watch the ground so that Bibi should not stumble.
“My God, but it is hellish to be blind!” he said; “I cannot even see you, you know.”
She helped him over an old, fallen trench at the edge of the wood, and in crossing it he slipped and fell against her. They stood, clinging together on the edge of the rotten bank; but Barbe had a body like steel, and she held the man on his feet with his head resting against her bosom. They remained thus for a moment, Bibi’s face flat against her
