“Done!” (His voice rose to a shriek again.) “But, what has she not?--That scoundrel Lacombe would have exchanged me my riches--my pitiful show of tankards that he had unearthed--for her favour. She would not; she refused to go with him; she reviled and cursed me--me that had been her bulwark against poverty.” “You would have sold her honour for your brazen pots?” “Gold and silver, monsieur; and it was only a question of temporary accommodation. In a few months she might have returned, and all would have been well again. But honour--bah! it will survive a chin-chuck better than loss of wealth. But she would not. She escaped from us by a lying ruse, and they sought her far and near without avail. At the last they robbed and maltreated me, and for that may hell seize them and fester in their bones!” “And in thine, thou pestilence!” My fury and my contempt joined with a clap, like detonating acids. “Lie there and rot!” I shouted, and so flung out of the room. My heart blazed. That white girl--that Carinne. I could recall her face, could picture her in her loneliness arraigned before Lacombe and his _sans-culottes_ and his reptile prisoner--defying them all. With some vague instinct of search directing my fury, I hurried through room after room of the empty house. Each was like its neighbour, vulgarised, scantily furnished, disfigured by the search that had been conducted therein. Once I broke into the girl’s own bed-chamber (it was hers, I will swear, by token of little feminine fancies consistent with the character I had gifted her withal), and cursed the beasts who had evidently made it the rallying-point of their brutal jesting. But this, obviously, must be the last place in which to seek her, and I quickly left it. Not a soul did I happen upon. Of whomsoever the household had consisted, no single individual but the old villain in the chair was remained to brazen out the situation. At last I made my way into the grounds once more, issuing from the rear of the building into a patch of dense woodland that flowed up to within fifty yards of the walls. I heard voices, and, plunging down a moist track amongst the trees, came immediately in view of my party returning to the house. Then I saw there were two women conducted in its midst, and my throat jumped, and I ran forward. At least my sudden apprehension was comforted. These crying wenches were of the working class--comely domestics by their appearance. Crépin stayed them all when he came up to me. The ugly look had not left his face--was intensified on it, in fact. He stared at me, haughty and lowering at once, and was altogether a very offensive creature. “Has Citizen Thibaut any further exception to take to my methods of procedure?” he said, ironically. I looked at him, but did not reply. “Because,” he went on, “perhaps his permission should be asked that these pretty citizenesses accompany me in my carriage?”