The hours passed. The rain had ceased some time. The station was plunged in absolute silence, troubled only by a distant and indistinct moan rising from the sea. Suddenly a pistol-shot brought them to their feet with a start. Day was about to break. A pale spot whitened the sky above the mouth of the Seine. What could be the meaning of that shot? Their imprudence, this folly of remaining together so late, made them, in swift imagination, picture to themselves the husband pursuing them with a revolver. "Don't venture out!" exclaimed Jacques. "Wait! I'll go and see!" Jacques had prudently advanced to the door, and there, in the dense darkness that still prevailed, he could hear men advancing at the double. He recognised the voice of Roubaud, urging forward the watchmen, shouting to them that the thieves were three in number, that he had distinctly seen them stealing coal. For some weeks not a night had passed without hallucinations of the same kind about imaginary brigands. On this occasion, he had fired haphazard into the gloom. "Quick! quick!" exclaimed the young man; "let us be off! They will come and search this place. Run as fast as you can!" She fell into his arms. They stifled one another, lips to lips. Then Séverine tripped lightly through the depôt, protected by the high wall, while he quietly disappeared among the heaps of coal. And it was only just time, for Roubaud, as he had foreseen, insisted on searching the tool-house. He vowed the thieves must be there. The lanterns of the watchmen danced on a level with the ground. There were words, and in the end they all turned back towards the station, irritated at this fruitless chase; while Jacques, with his mind at ease, at last determined to make his way to the Rue François-Mazeline and go to bed. The meetings between him and Séverine continued throughout the summer. Nor were they interrupted when the cold weather came at the commencement of October. She arrived wrapped in an ample cloak, and, to be screened from the frigid air outside, they barricaded themselves in the tool-house by means of an iron bar that they had found there. In this little retreat they were at home. The November hurricanes could roar, and tear the slates from the roofs, without inconveniencing them.