Until night Séverine and Jacques were free, and belonged to one another. On the return journey, it being dark, she closed her eyes, enjoying her happiness over again. But morning and night, each time she passed La Croix-de-Maufras, she advanced her head; and, without discovering herself, cast a furtive glance outside the carriage, certain that she would there find Flore, erect before the gate of the level-crossing, presenting the flag in its case, and embracing the train with her flaming eyes. Since the snowy day when this girl had caught them kissing one another, Jacques had warned Séverine to be careful of her. He was no longer ignorant of that passion of a wild creature wherewith she had pursued him from her earliest years. He felt that she was jealous, and that she possessed virile energy, as well as unbridled and deadly rancour. Moreover, she must be well-informed in regard to matters concerning Séverine, for he remembered her allusion to the intimacy of the President with a certain young lady whom no one suspected, and for whom he had found a husband. If she knew this, she must assuredly have penetrated the mystery of the crime. Doubtless, she would be talking or writing, so as to avenge herself by a denunciation. But days and weeks passed without anything happening. He still found her there, planted rigidly at her post beside the line, with her flag. Far away, as soon as she was able to catch sight of the locomotive, he felt the sensation of her burning eyes. She saw him, notwithstanding the smoke, and embraced all his frame in her glance, following him in the lightning flash amidst the thunder of the wheels. And the train was scrutinised at the same time, pierced through and through, inspected from the first carriage to the last; she always discovered the other one, the rival, whom she now knew to be there every Friday. And Séverine might well advance her head but a trifle, impelled by the imperious necessity to look. She was seen. Their eyes crossed like rapiers. The train was already far away, devouring space; and one person remained on the ground, powerless to follow it, raging at the happiness it bore along. Flore seemed to be growing. Jacques found her taller at each journey, and felt uneasy at her taking no action, wondering what plan would ripen in the head of this great, gloomy girl, whose motionless apparition he could not avoid.