This furnished the dog with a scent, put us on his track, and the livelong day we had followed it, like Indians on the trail of an enemy. One by one, Guillaume de Boisguiller, Urbain the gardener, Bertrand, the old porter, the peasant, and others, had dropped behind in weariness; but I, taking the dog in hand, inspired and endued by revenge with thrice my natural strength, had urged the pursuit alone, through wild thickets, up rough ravines, and across streams and torrents, while a pale face, in awful repose, with eyes glazed and half open, and a mouth the lips of which were two blue lines, seemed to lead me on--and on I went, unflinchingly and unswervingly. Gradually there came a horrid calmness to my mind--the calmness that follows a shock--a grief too great to last; and there was something soothing in the conviction that Hautois could not escape me; that so surely as if I held an enchanted clue or magic wand I could track him now, if I husbanded my strength, and I could have kissed the ferocious dog that led me on his devious and secret track. What had she suffered--my poor Jacqueline!--how much endured ere death came to her release! It may seem strange, but I had a grim satisfaction in the knowledge that her sufferings were all over now--that she was at rest, at peace, and that she would see how fearfully I would avenge her. But how, was the startling question or thought which occurred to me; for in the rapidity of my pursuit through the thickets of briars and matted shrubs in which I had to make my way, up the rocks which I had to climb, or down which I had to leap, the pistols had dropped from my girdle, when or where I knew not, and thus I was--defenceless! Yet I heeded not even this terrible conviction; my only desire was to reach, to meet and to grapple with Hautois--weary though I was, to grapple with him bare-handed, and trust the rest to youth and strength, to justice and to God. When twilight was setting in I found myself in a very wild place. The dog was conducting me up a ravine the sides of which were covered with vast blocks of basalt, the _débris_ of some earthquake. In rank luxuriance the weeds and wild flowers covered them in many places. On both sides of this wilderness of rocks grew a dense forest, the timber of which was of several kinds; but the underwood seemed to consist of wild apple-trees. Great mountains of rock bordered this forest on one side; on the other it stretched away into the gloom of evening and the obscurity of distance. Although I knew it not, I was then in the forest of St. Aubin du Cormier, so named from the prevalence of the _cormier_, or sorb-apple tree--that forest through which flows the subterranean torrent which forms one of the natural wonders of the province.