At the precise moment that the cab turned into the Place de la Trinité she directed the driver to turn back to the Rue Nouvelle. Why? She could not have told. She stopped the cab and paid her fare at the top of this street. Her plan was made and she put it into execution with that courageous decision which danger sometimes inspires in souls like hers, passive on their own behalf, but all flame and energy in defence of their love. She could see that Bonnivet’s carriage was still in the same place. Her umbrella up to protect her from the sleet was sure to hide her face as she walked bravely along past the carriage and reached the house, the door of which the jealous husband was watching. Her doubts were removed, for a stream of light through the cracks of the shutters denoted some one’s presence in the rooms. She went in without hesitation and walked straight to the porter, who saluted her in an embarrassed way. “I can assure you, mademoiselle, that M. Molan is not here,” he replied when she insisted, after his first denial. “I tell you he is here with a lady,” she replied. “I saw the light through the windows.” Then sharply with the inexpressible authority which emanates from a person really in despair she said: “Wretch, you will repent for the rest of your life of not answering me frankly now. Stop,” she added, taking the astonished porter’s arm and pulling him out of the lodge. “Look in that carriage at the corner of the street on the right and take care you are not seen. You will see some one watching the house. He is the woman’s husband. If you want blood here directly when she leaves, all you have to do is to prevent me going up to warn them. Good God, what are you afraid of? Search me if you want to make sure I have no weapon and would not harm them. My lover deceives me, I know, but I love him; do you hear? I love him, and I wish to save him. Cannot you see that I am not lying to you?” Dominated by a will stretched to its uttermost, the man allowed himself to be pulled to the door. Luck, that blind and inexplicable chance which is our salvation and destruction in similar crises, sometimes by the most insignificant of coincidences, that luck whose constant favour to the audacious Jacques I mentioned, willed that at the moment when the porter looked towards the carriage Bonnivet leaned out a little. The man turned to Camille Favier with an agitated look. “I can see him,” he cried; “it is the gentleman who the day before yesterday asked me some questions about the occupants of the house. He asked me if a M. Molan lived here, and when I replied 'No’ according to orders, he took a pocket-book from his pocket. 'What do you take me for?’ I asked him. I ought to have given the rascal a good hiding. Wait while I go and ask him if he has authority from the police to watch houses.”