"It was a short-handled, broad-bladed hunter's knife. She took it and ran to the dead wolf. She made a great effort and drove it in his throat, the warm blood trickling down her hands and along her skirt; she turned her knife around, cut deep, then hacked, and finally severed the head from the trunk, which she dragged by one leg over the slippery snow as far as she could. Then she returned to her lover with the bloody, bristly head of the beast in her hand. "What Laurent had foreseen occurred. The wolves, at first frightened by the death of their leader, were soon brought back by the smell of the blood. In the white light of the moon, reflected by the snow like the fantastic light of a fairy scene, the two young people saw the group of lean, ravenous beasts rubbing their backs against one another, crowding around the fresh prey, tearing it limb from limb, growling and snarling over it, wrenching off the flesh, until nothing was left of it, not even a tuft of hair. "Meanwhile the boy was suffering greatly from his injuries. Solange, whose nerves were beginning to relax, struggled vainly against exhaustion and sleep. Twice her gun fell from her hands. The wolves, having finished their meal, began to draw nearer. The girl fired twice in the lot, but her benumbed fingers trembled and she missed her aim. At each report the band turned tail, trotted about a hundred metres down the road, waited a moment and came back. "Then the two poor children were convinced that it was all over with them, and that they must die. Solange dropped her gun. It never once occurred to her that she might save herself. She threw herself down beside her lover, clasped her arms around him, laid her cheek against his, and there under the same cloak they awaited death, half frozen with the cold, half burning with fever. Their confused brains conjured strange visions. Now they thought they had gone back to the balmy nights of June when the forest, clad in deep green, sheltered their peaceful meetings, then suddenly the wood was bare, lighted with a weird snowy light, peopled with shifting forms, eyes like burning embers, great open jaws that multiplied, and came nearer, ever nearer. "But neither Solange nor Laurent was destined to die so horrible a death. Providence--yes, young men, I believe in a Providence--had decreed that I, on that Christmas morning, should find myself on that particular road on my way home in my carryall from St. Bonnet le Désert. I managed the lines; my man held the gun and inspected the road. No doubt our sleigh-bells frightened away the wolves, for we saw none. As we drove near the elm at the foot of which the lovers lay, my mare shied, and so drew our attention to them. I jumped down from the seat. My man and I settled them in the carryall as best as we could, covering them with what wraps we had along. They were unconscious and almost frozen. We took the bloody head of the wolf with us too.