"Halt!" said Gouraud; "you have pulled me down, but stones enough came with me to bury you--" "Colonel!--" "Colonel or not, I shall give you your deserts. In the first place, you shall not be deputy--" "Colonel!--" "I control ten votes and the election depends on--" "Colonel, listen to me. Is there no one to marry but that old Sylvie? I have just been defending you to her; you are accused and convicted of writing to Pierrette; she saw you leave your house at midnight and come to the girl's window--" "Stuff and nonsense!" "She means to marry her brother to Bathilde and leave her fortune to their children." "Rogron won't have any." "Yes he will," replied Vinet. "But I promise to find you some young and agreeable woman with a hundred and fifty thousand francs? Don't be a fool; how can you and I afford to quarrel? Things have gone against you in spite of all my care; but you don't understand me." "Then we must understand each other," said the colonel. "Get me a wife with a hundred and fifty thousand francs before the elections; if not --look out for yourself! I don't like unpleasant bed-fellows, and you've pulled the blankets all over to your side. Good-evening." "You shall see," said Vinet, grasping the colonel's hand affectionately. * * * * * About one o'clock that night three clear, sharp cries of an owl, wonderfully well imitated, echoed through the square. Pierrette heard them in her feverish sleep; she jumped up, moist with perspiration, opened her window, saw Brigaut, and flung down a ball of silk, to which he fastened a letter. Sylvie, agitated by the events of the day and her own indecision of mind, was not asleep; she heard the owl. "Ah, bird of ill-omen!" she thought. "Why, Pierrette is getting up! What is she after?" Hearing the attic window open softly, Sylvie rushed to her own window and heard the rustle of paper against her blinds. She fastened the strings of her bed-gown and went quickly upstairs to Pierrette's room, where she found the poor girl unwinding the silk and freeing the letter. "Ha! I've caught you!" cried the old woman, rushing to the window, from which she saw Jacques running at full speed. "Give me that letter." "No, cousin," said Pierrette, who, by one of those strong inspirations of youth sustained by her own soul, rose to a grandeur of resistance such as we admire in the history of certain peoples reduced to despair. "Ha! you will not?" cried Sylvie, advancing upon the girl with a face full of hatred and fury.