"In that case I can understand my meeting with Monsieur Antoine Thierry and his words. He must have known that you were to be there. He was on the watch; he made an ironical remark which I did not understand, but which gave me something to think about. As I returned to the pavilion, I stopped, being somewhat uneasy, in front of your hôtel. Your servants were in great commotion. It seems that your coachman could not be found. I accosted the concierge, who knows my face, and, seeing that he was greatly disturbed, I asked him if any accident had happened to you. He told me of the Marquis d'Estrelle's death, and that you had driven here with my cousin Marcel. Your coachman appeared at last, dead drunk and unable to understand any of the orders you had left for him. The concierge left me, saying that when Bastien was once on his box, he would go all right. That did not seem very reassuring to me. I am not so phlegmatic as your concierge, and I came here as fast as I could. I hoped to find Marcel still here and to tell him not to trust you unattended to the care of a drunken coachman; but I arrived a few moments too late. You are alone and you have been frightened." "It is all over," said Julie, "and I am calm again; take me home on foot. You are my Providence!" "On foot, it is too far," replied Julien, "and you are not properly shod for walking. This cab here will take us, willingly or by force, I give you my word, and I will get up behind and accompany you." Julien returned with Madame d'Estrelle to the cab. He put her in and ordered the driver to start. The driver refused. Julien jumped up beside him and seized the reins, swearing that he would throw him into the gutter if he resisted. The young man's manly bearing and determined air awed the cab-driver, who submitted; but he had not driven a hundred yards when he stopped, yelling _thief_ and _murder._ A party of men had just come out of a house, and the poor devil hoped to find some aid against the violence he was undergoing. As luck would have it these men were young dandies fresh from a sumptuous supper, and a little the worse for wine. The adventure presented itself at that moment of excitement when one gladly constitutes himself a redresser of wrongs, especially when the odds are four to one in his favor. They abruptly stopped the horses, and one of them opened the door, for the cabman was yelling at the top of his voice: "Help! here's a villain carrying off a nun!" "Let us see if she's worth the trouble!" replied the party with one voice. [Illustration 04: _JULIEN ESCORTS MADAME D'ESTRELLE_ _Julien defended himself with his cane, and used it with such self-possession, skill and strength, that one of the assailants fell and the others retreated._]