“Fortunately,” he said gravely. “And also I must be mixed up with all the things that are about to happen. Do you think they are not searching for you? Do you think that Marescal has given you up? At this moment he is on your trail. He will follow it to Marseilles, to Toulouse, to this convent of Sainte-Marie. If you lived here happily during some years of your childhood, as I suppose, he must know and he will come.” He spoke gently with a conviction which impressed the girl deeply; and he hardly heard her as she murmured once again: “Go away.” “Yes: I will go,” he said. “But I shall be here again to-morrow at the same hour; I shall be waiting for you here every day. We have to talk. Not of anything which might be painful to you and not about the nightmare of that horrible night. We will not speak about it. I have no need to know; the truth will emerge little by little from the darkness. But there are other points—questions I shall put to you and which you will have to answer. That is what I wanted to say to you to-day, no more. Now you can go. But you will think it over, won’t you? And do not worry any longer. Get used to the idea that I am always here and that you must never despair because I shall always be here—in the hour of peril.” She went without a word, without a nod of adieu. He watched her descend the terraces and enter the avenue of limes. When he saw her no longer he picked up some of the flowers she had dropped and becoming aware of this unconscious action, he laughed. “Heavens! This is growing serious,” he murmured in a jeering tone. “Can it be that—come, come Lupin old chap, take a pull.” He took his way back down the wall, once more traversed the pool, and walked through the forest, throwing away the flowers one by one as if he had lost interest in them. But the image of the girl with the green eyes still hovered before his own. Next day he climbed up again to the terrace. Aurelie did not come; and she did not come the two following days. But on the fourth day she parted the branches without his having heard the sound of her coming. “Oh, it’s you—it’s you at last!” he said. He gathered from her attitude that he was not to advance a step or say a word which might ruffle her sensibilities. She stood as on the first day like an opponent who revolts against being dominated and is angry with an enemy for the service he is rendering. However her tone was less hard when, with half averted head, she said: “I ought not to have come. It is not fair to my benefactors, the Sisters of Sainte-Marie. But I thought that I ought to thank you—and help you.” She paused, then added: “Besides, I’m frightened, really frightened—frightened by what you said to me. Question me—I will answer.” “Question you about everything?” he asked. “No, no!” she said in a tone of anguish. “Not about the night at Beaucourt. But about the other things. As shortly as you can, please. What is it you want to know?”