Should she give her life to a traitor without endeavoring to unmask him, although warned? With her widely dilated eyes, she imagined that she saw lights that did not exist; or--if she did really see a feeble gleam through the chinks in the door--she refused to believe her eyes. The blood was tingling in her ears, and she thought she could hear voices. It seemed to her at times as if her head were bursting. She could see, inside her head, beneath her skull, a great white light, and in the centre of the light Renaud and the gipsy together. Oh! to think of not finding out! And, if it should be so, what should she do? The essential thing was to find out. Afterward, she would see. If she were strong enough, if she could do it--she would certainly kill the woman.--How? Livette did not know. Simply with a look, perhaps.--Madness rises from the swamps with the miasmatic exhalations at night. Livette felt that she was going mad. "How do you get to the cabin?" she had asked her father. Ah! yes, the path is marked by stakes, is it not? To the left of the stakes is the path. She cannot see the tops of the stakes in the dark water. Frogs were sitting on them, perhaps, to look at the moon; or turtles on those that were just level with the surface. But no, it was grass that covered them all. And Livette's eyes ached with her endeavors to open them wider in the darkness, and find some sign upon the indistinct objects about her. But suppose Rampal had deceived her? At one time, it seemed to her that she could hear something resembling the gipsy music that made the snakes dance--but so weak! Surely it was in her poor, tired head,--for if it had been the real music, all the reptiles in the swamp would have come out to dance, all at once, in the moonlight. Bah! Why should she be afraid? As if there were so very many of the creatures in the country! They are not fond of the salt in the bogs, nor the high winds. She hovered about the swamp like a sea-gull lost at sea! "Yes, yes, this is the way, here is the path under the water and the stakes that mark it! I must keep the stakes at my right as I walk along." She starts to take the first step, and dares not--but suddenly the sound of voices comes to her ears. She distinguishes two voices--two!--beyond any question. And now it is surely the metallic sound of the tambourine that floats through the reeds in the moonlight, bringing to her heart the frightful vision of the other's joy! She will go. After all, since her unhappiness is certain, what matter if she die of it! Ah! how bitter would be his punishment if, on coming out, at daybreak, he should find her there, drowned!