The short road from Rouen to Duclair, a little before the latter place, runs between the meadows on the bank of the Seine to the cliff which hangs over the stream. Caves have been hollowed in the actual chalk and serve the peasants as tool-houses and sometimes as lodgings for themselves. It came about that Ralph at last noticed that one of these caves was occupied by three men who were weaving baskets from the osiers of the neighboring stream. A small hedgeless vegetable garden lay in front of it. A careful study of their habits and some suspicious details led him to suppose that father Corbu and his two sons, poachers and petty thieves with an uncommonly bad reputation, were affiliated with that band the members of which Josephine always had ready to her hand, and also to suppose that this cave of theirs was one of those refuges--inns, sheds, lime-kilns, and so forth, which Josephine had established all about the country. He had to change his surmise into a certainty without attracting anyone’s attention. He tried therefore to turn the enemy’s position, and climbing on to the cliff, took his way from the river by a woodland path which dipped into a slight depression. At the bottom of the depression he crawled through the bushes and briars to a spot five or six feet above the cave. He had brought food and drink with him and there he spent two days and two nights. Concealed by the bushes and the thick grass under them, he took an unobtrusive part in the life of the three men. On the second day a conversation he overheard proved uncommonly enlightening: the Corbu family had been in charge of Madam Rousselin and since the flight from Maulevrier Forest were actually keeping her at the end of their cave. How was he to set her free? Or how, at any rate, was he to get near her and obtain from the unfortunate woman the information which she had doubtless refused Josephine? Carefully considering the habits of the Corbus, he formed and rejected several plans. But on the morning of the third day he saw the _Nonchalante_ descend the river and come to her moorings at the foot of the cliff, about three-quarters of a mile from the cave. At five o’clock in the evening two people came across the gangway and along the river bank. In spite of her peasant’s dress, he recognized Josephine by her walk. Leonard was her companion. They stopped in front of the Corbus’ cave and conversed with them as with persons on whom they had chanced by accident. Then, since there was no one on the road, they went sharply into the garden. Leonard disappeared into the interior of the cave. Josephine remained outside, sitting on an old and rickety chair, under the cover of a screen of shrubs. Old Corbus hoed away at his garden. His sons went on with their basket-work. “The questioning is going to begin again,” murmured Ralph. “What a pity it is I cannot be present at it!”