Malaire

Noguère an old patriarch is about to die and decides to confess at last to a priest He once lived alone with his son Juste who helped him to farm the Mauvents land One night Noguère fired at a couple of trespassers hurting the girl and killing her fiancé Giving Catoune the girl the shelter of his home Noguère was forced however reluctantly it may have been to break the bad news to the fiancée For all that Catoune recovered settled down and later married Juste After a while Juste left for the war and was soon reported missing Noguère comforted the distressed young woman so well that she became her mistress But Juste had not been killed