The call was fainter now, with a note of reproach and the suggestion of a sob, but Jean gave no heed. He only stood there, his heart full of jealousy and anger, thinking evil thoughts. A strange meeting, surely, on that lonely path at such an hour. A coincidence? Hardly. Pre-arranged? Doubtless. To what end? Who can understand the heart of a woman? To meet a stranger by accident on a Sunday morning, after Mass, to have one visit and another, a game of croquet, and then----. Love at first sight, it would seem, and after that a rapid career, a swift descent into the depths. Inconceivable? Yes. Impossible? Nothing is impossible. Even the holy angels could fall from Heaven, and the Son of God might have bowed down to Satan. But the whip? Jean held it up in his clenched hand, a short but heavy raw-hide with a knotted tail and loaded head, a dangerous weapon in strong and determined hands. She had come alone, but not unprotected. And those marks on the face of Pamphile? Inflicted by the selfsame whip, evidently. By whose hand? The hand of Gabrielle. Jean’s heart gave a leap at the thought, and he almost smiled. She had struck Pamphile twice with the knotted tail, and if Jean had not come to the rescue she would have turned at bay and felled her assailant to the ground with the leaden head. Brave Gabrielle! A girl of spirit, that, a girl worthy of any man. How then could she be ensnared by that spider, be fascinated by that serpent? But she had broken the spider’s net; she had escaped the wiles of the serpent. A lover’s quarrel? Only lovers quarrel; the indifferent never. But do they strike each other with a whip? No, thank God, Gabrielle did not love Pamphile. Impossible. As for the rest, what matter? Strange, certainly, that meeting in the woods, but not more strange than his own arrival in the nick of time. The world itself is strange, and the combinations, the possibilities, infinite. All is strange, mysterious, improbable. Nothing can be explained. One must have faith in one’s friends, in oneself, in God. No; she cared nothing for that reptile. A passing fancy, perhaps, but even that was over--else why the blow, the flight, the cry for help? On whom does one call in the hour of danger? On one’s friends, first of all, and then, in the last extremity, on God. "Jean! Jean!" A low voice seemed to call to him from the hill, a voice as of one in tears. Jean awoke from his reverie, and ran up the path. "Gabrielle!" he called. "I am coming, dear. No danger. I am here. Gabrielle! Gabrielle! where are you?"