Was he, then, going to stir up the ashes of those days now dead and gone, and make her weep like her son Antoine had done?
"I don't know," she said in a hasty voice; "I no longer go out, I never see anybody." Silvere waited the morrow with considerable impatience.

And as soon as he got to his master's workshop, he drew his fellow-workmen into conversation.

He did not say anything about his interview with Miette; but spoke vaguely of a girl whom he had seen from a distance in the Jas-Meiffren.
"Oh! that's La Chantegreil!" cried one of the workmen.
There was no necessity for Silvere to question them further, for they told him the story of the poacher Chantegreil and his daughter Miette, with that unreasoning spite which is felt for social outcasts.

The girl, in particular, they treated in a foul manner; and the insulting gibe of "daughter of a galley-slave" constantly rose to their lips like an incontestable reason for condemning the poor, dear innocent creature to eternal disgrace.
However, wheelwright Vian, an honest, worthy fellow, at last silenced his men.
"Hold your tongues, you foul mouths!" he said, as he let fall the shaft of a cart that he had been examining.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves for being so hard upon the child.