Page:Audoux - Valserine and other stories.djvu/13

 VALSERINE

CHAPTER I

EVER since dawn, Valserine had remained leaning on the window-sill as she always did when she was waiting for her father to return. She knew perfectly well that he would not come that morning, but she could not help watching the little pathway up which he used to toil, bent almost double with the weight of the big bales which he had smuggled across the frontier. She had been crying so much the day before, and had been crying so much all night, that now she could not keep back the great sobs ending in soft moans which broke from her little throat every few minutes. She heard the sound of a horse's footfall