“_Mais non, monsieur--par pitié, mais non!_” cried one of the wenches in a sobbing voice. He bent down to her--a sicklily self-revealed animal. “Hush, _ma petite_!” he said. “We of the Republic do not ask--we take. Thou shalt have a brighter gown than ever De Lâge furnished for thy shapely limbs.” She stopped crying, and seemed to listen at that. He came erect again, with a smile on his face and his lips licking together, and regarded me defiantly. “The Citizen Representative can please himself,” I said, coldly, and pushed past them all and walked on. Crépin turned to look after me, gave a peculiar cynical laugh, and cried “_En avant!_” to his party. I was to read the significance of his attitude in a moment--to read it in the dead form of Michel hanging from a tree. I rushed back along the path, and caught the others as they issued from the wood. Crépin heard me coming, bade his men on to the house, and returned a pace or two to meet me. His mood asserted, he was something inclined, I suppose, to a resumption of the better terms between us. At any rate, his expression now was a mixture of embarrassment and a little apprehension. But I spoke to him very staidly and quietly-- “M. Crépin, it dawns upon me that I am slow to learn the methods of the new morality, and that I shall never justify your choice of a secretary.” “You are going to leave me.” “There will be the more room in the coach for monsieur’s harem.” I made him a low bow and went off amongst the trees. He called after me--there was some real regret in his voice--“But you will come to harm! be wise!--monsieur!” I paid no heed; and the thickets received and buried me. CHAPTER V. _LA GRAND’ BÊTE._ My rupture with Crépin was the preface to a period of my life, the details of which I could never but doubtfully piece together in my mind. During this period I lived, but how I supported existence is a problem that it is beyond my power to solve. I have an indistinct memory of wandering amongst trees--always amongst trees; in light and darkness; in drought and in dew; of scaring and being scared by snakes, that rustled from me over patches of dead leaves; of swallowing, in desperate phases of hunger, berries and forest fruits, of whose properties I was as ignorant as of their names. And, throughout, the strange thought dwelt with me, warm and insistent, that I was the champion elect of that white Carinne with whom I had never so much as exchanged a word. To me she was the Una of these fathomless green depths--the virgin who had carried her maidenhood and her pride to the Republic of the woods, where security and an equal condition were the right of all.