Thereupon, all the events of the night returned to his mind, and finished the work of poisoning. He could not be reconciled to the thought that he should never again see what he had had for so short a time. No, it could not be at an end. If she were a criminal, why then he would love her in her crime, that was all! The black bull was loose.--But Livette? aha! Livette? a swan's feather, or a red flamingo's, under his horse's hoof. What was the placid affection the young maid had inspired in his heart compared to the frenzy of sorrow and joy the other caused him to feel? Sorrow and joy combined, that is what love is; and the love men prefer is not that which contains the greater joy as compared to the keener sorrow--it is that in which those emotions are most intense. It was that law of passion to whose operation Renaud was now being subjected. He realized that he had definitely chosen the other, the gipsy, despite the cry of his outraged sense of honor. That cry of his honest heart, to which he no longer lent a willing ear, he still heard, do what he would, and he suffered half consciously, for many reasons which he did not distinguish one from another, but which resulted in producing a confused feeling in his own mind that he was a monster. A monster! for now that he considered the matter more carefully, it became his settled conviction that the gitana had intended to kill Livette--and yet it was that same gitana that he loved! Ah! the witch!--She had certainly seen Livette, her poor little head, like a dead woman's, lying on the water among the grass, her mouth open for the last cry for help, her teeth glistening with water in the sunlight! She could not have helped seeing her.--And she had passed her by without a word!--It was because she was determined to be her ruin. She had evidently led her into the trap. How? What did it matter! but it was no longer possible to doubt that it was the fact. But in that case--if she was really guilty--there could be no doubt, either, that having seen her desire accomplished, she had fled. She would appear no more! he would have no opportunity to kill her! he would never see her again! And the thing that moved him most deeply in connection with Livette's misfortune was the thought that it involved Zinzara's flight. He tried in vain to put away the abominable regret; it returned upon him like a wave. What! he should never see her again! Oh! those caresses of the night before in the cabin of the swamp were clinging to his arms and legs like serpents. They twined about his body as creeping plants about the branches of the tamarisk, or as one eel about another: biting at his heart. And he shivered from head to foot. "Ah! the witch!" he repeated. "Ah! the witch! What! never again!"