"How strong he is, how straight!" she murmured, and she thought of the rabbit in his pocket and smiled. "_La Belle Hélène_, _La Belle Hélène_, his heart is all with the ship. If I were not so old, and the sea has taken so much! It is not fair," she said, shaking her head. "One may at least keep one out of four brave gars." And then she went into her cabin, shut the door against the wind, and commenced a new pair of stockings. Meanwhile Jean-Paul went sturdily up, up the hill. The road to St. Julian lay past the woods of the château. The young fellow loved these forests when the tree trunks were all green with a bright moss growth, and where the guests of the Mayor came and hunted during the fall weeks, and flashed through the trees in their bright scarlet coats. [Illustration: THE GAMEKEEPER'S HAND FELL UPON JEAN-PAUL.] He had often watched the chase, and seen the brown hares jump in the underbrush and the deer fly by. But his thoughts on this day were elsewhere, and do as he would, it was nothing but _La Belle Hélène_, _La Belle Hélène_ that kept constantly sailing into his thoughts and casting anchor in his brain. It was easy enough to slip off at night, follow the cliff path, and before you know it you are at Fécamp; and the harbor is bristling with barks at this season, and when one knows the mate of _La Belle Hélène_, and he has said, "Come, Jean-Paul, you will join us next year surely, mon vieux." (That makes one feel so grand to be called old chap by a man of position.) "Next year I will give you a good berth and recommend you to the Captain, and you will do the rest." And this was next year, and he was as far away as ever! Here Jean-Paul drew a big breath that meant a pain was at the other end of it, and went on thinking. When he reached the little knoll just at the end of the forest château, the hard struggle was at an end, but he felt about as beside himself as a healthy boy of fifteen can. The result was that he was more tired than though he had already gone the whole of the long way to St. Julian. Suddenly he remembered what his grandmother had given him just before he left the house--his luncheon; and he sat down on a big stone, and he drew out of his pocket a chunk of coarse bread and a stick of chocolate. He commenced slowly and meditatively to munch this repast and stare way down the long white road into the fast-deepening twilight, while the wind, which was against him, blew so hard that he could with difficulty keep his seat. Far away behind him lay a glimpse of the sea, which showed black and sullen. Jean-Paul felt La Belle Hélène move restlessly in the right pocket of his coat. "Poor little thing, she is hungry too! I will not eat alone," he said, and drew the rabbit out of his pocket, and put her on his knee, gently stroking her while she nibbled a few crumbs of bread. Just then who can say what strange spirit awoke in La Belle Hélène, or what familiar wood call may have reached