The girl bit her lips and frowned. "This is what I get by that I have done, and I have ridden all night to gratify you. I asked my father. I entreated that the men might be let go free. He would not hearken. Then I did this. I could not get the men discharged in any other way. Let them go back," said the girl sullenly; "back into bonds and be served as was threatened. You are content so long as the Jew has his moneys." "Not so. The men are free--they cannot go back. I had rather they had been freed by any other means." "And by any other person--say it all!" "I will not say that. There, Noémi," said the young man, laying his hand on the horse's neck, "I know you meant kindly and right by us. It is not your fault; it is the fault of your blood; it is the fault of the times that you have gone about it in a wrong way." "There was no other way." "I do not say that. I was going to Bergerac to raise the money there." "And pawn your inheritance to a Christian usurer who is worse than a Jew. You have your men, you have your land--be content. If wrong is done, I did it." Noémi abandoned her horse and entered the ferry-boat with the men and Jean. The joy, the tears, the passionate affection with which the recovered men were welcomed, clung to by their wives and children and friends, moved the girl, and her cheek grew pale and her eyes filled. Jean observed the emotion and said nothing to her, but to himself he breathed: "She is not heartless! The good is not all dead in her." Some of the women, supposing rightly that the men owed their release to Noémi, but not knowing who she was, came to her, took her hand, kissed it, knelt and put to their lips the hem of her skirt. She was abashed, and shrank back. "You shall see," said Jean. "I will show you from what you have saved these poor fellows!" He led her into the cottage of the Rossignols, and she remained silent, apparently cold, looking at the crippled man. "Can you sit up?" she asked, after a long pause. "Sit up--yes," he said, and moved his elbow and heaved himself up; "but it opens the wounds again." "And--can you put your feet down?" "Feet; I'll never do that more." "Nor stand?" "God help me! Never stand before man, never kneel before God. I'm a young man; I'm five-and-twenty, and have got three children. I'll never do aught but lie as a log all the years I have to live!" "There is a trifle for you," said Noémi, putting money into his hand. "I would I had more. Hush! I cannot bear that!" The poor woman, still half distraught, now worked to further excitement by the return of the seven men safe and sound, while her own husband lay in irrecoverable wretchedness, broke into a storm of curses against Le Gros Guillem, and of blasphemy against God. It was more horrible to hear her than to see the man, who bore his lot not so much with patience as with stolidity. Then in came Ogier del' Peyra.