A few more minutes passed, and Jacques could not make up his mind to abandon all hope. In his exasperation against this disgusting rain, he felt an increasing wild desire to gain, in spite of all, the place where he and Séverine were to meet; so as at least to have the pleasure of being there himself, even if he no longer expected to find his sweetheart. With spasmodic precipitation, he at last dashed through the rain. He reached their favourite corner, and followed the dark alley formed by the heaps of coal. And, as the sharp rain whipped his face and blinded him, he went as far as the tool-house, where he and Séverine had already once found shelter. He seemed to think he would be less lonely there. Jacques was entering the dense obscurity of this retreat when a couple of slender arms entwined him, and a pair of warm lips rested on his own. Séverine was there. "Goodness gracious! is it you?" he exclaimed. "Yes," she answered; "I saw the storm approaching, and ran here before the rain came down. What a time you have been!" "You expected me then?" "Oh! yes. I waited, waited----" They had seated themselves on a pile of empty sacks, listening to the pouring rain beating, with increased violence, on the roof. The last train from Paris, which was just coming in, passed by, roaring, whistling, rocking the ground. All at once Jacques rose. On seating himself a few moments before, he had by chance found the handle of a hammer beneath his hand, and he was now deluged with intense joy. It was all over then! He had not grasped that hammer and smashed the skull of his sweetheart. She was his own, without a battle, without that instinctive craving to fling her lifeless on her back, like a prey torn from others. He no longer thirsted to avenge those very ancient offences, whose exact details escaped his memory, that rancour stored up from male to male since the first deceptions in the depths of caverns. No. This girl had cured him, because he saw she was different from the others, violent in her weakness, reeking with human gore, which encircled her in a sort of cuirass of horror. She predominated over him, he, who had never dared do as she had done. Séverine was also lost in reflections. Her heart had been pining after love--absolute, constant love; and it was frightful cruelty that these recent events should have cast her, haggard and anxious, into such abominations. Fate had dragged her in mire and blood with such violence that her beautiful blue eyes, though still naïve, had preserved a look of terror-stricken expansion beneath her tragic crest of raven hair. "Oh! my darling, carry me off, keep me with you!" she exclaimed; "your desires shall be mine." "No, no, my treasure," replied Jacques, who had again seated himself beside her, "you are mistress. I am only here to love and obey you."