She was standing modestly at a distance, when presently a young man of well-to-do appearance, who had been leaning on the pole of a wagon and smoking his pipe, approached her, and asked her for a dance.

He treated her to cider and cake, bought her a silk shawl, and then, thinking she had guessed his purpose, offered to see her home.
When they came to the end of a field he threw her down brutally.
But she grew frightened and screamed, and he walked off.
One evening, on the road leading to Beaumont, she came upon a wagon loaded with hay, and when she overtook it, she recognised Theodore.

He greeted her calmly, and asked her to forget what had happened between them, as it "was all the fault of the drink." She did not know what to reply and wished to run away.
Presently he began to speak of the harvest and of the notables of the village; his father had left Colleville and bought the farm of Les Ecots, so that now they would be neighbors.

"Ah!" she exclaimed.

He then added that his parents were looking around for a wife for him, but that he, himself, was not so anxious and preferred to wait for a girl who suited him.