“Help! help!” she cried, in terror. “Help! They are dragging me to a convent—” A smothered exclamation of pain followed the last word. Some one inside the carriage had pulled her back and stifled her cries. Instead of the girl’s face there now appeared at the door the wrathful face of a knight. “Seize the dog,” he shouted. “Do not kill him. I must have him alive.” The men at arms prepared for action at once, but Jean did not stir. He stood immovable as a statue, staring at the door. The distress which he was powerless to relieve threatened his own undoing, but he remained as if glued to the spot, trying to identify the personality of the victim. He had only caught a fleeting glance of her, but that glance left an impression that could not be effaced. She was a girl of fifteen or sixteen years, and so radiantly beautiful that even her expression of poignant suffering and fear could not diminish her charm. Meanwhile the men at arms were arranging their plan. They evidently intended to surround and overpower him, but their movements were too slow to suit the knight in the carriage. “Well,” he roared, “what are you waiting for? Seize him!” The command brought Jean to his senses, and the first glance revealed his danger. With a quick rush he broke through the circle of his assailants and ran back into the thicket. “Follow him, ride him down,” furiously cried the knight. The men at arms rode after him, but before they could overtake him he had disappeared in the woods, where they could not follow him on horseback. To dismount and pursue him on foot would have been a rash undertaking, so they turned about only to receive violent reproaches and curses from their master, who was forced to resume his journey without his wished-for victim. Jean did not go far, for he well knew they would not dare to follow him into the forest. Leaning against a tree, he watched the carriage, which took the road to Rouen. His first impulse was to follow it and keep it in sight, but, upon second thought, he remembered he was not at that moment his own master, but was in the service of another, and that under such circumstances he had no right to risk his liberty or his life. Accordingly he let the carriage go on several hours before he resumed his journey.