"All right, ma'am; and don't be alarmed yourself, but, when I make you the signal, give me your hand, she'll then pass under all alone, for everything's ready, and you have nothing to fear," replied Nicholas, in a similar tone; and then, with savage brutality, unmoved by Fleur-de-Marie's youth and beauty, he put his hand out to her. The young girl leaned lightly on him and entered the boat. "Now you, my good lady," said Nicholas to Madame Seraphin, offering her his hand in turn. Was it presentiment, or mistrust, or only fear that she could not spring quickly enough out of the little bark in which Nicholas and the Goualeuse were, that made Jacques Ferrand's housekeeper say to Nicholas, shrinking back, "No, I'll go in the boat with mademoiselle?" And she took her seat by Calabash. "Just as you please," said Nicholas, exchanging an expressive look with his sister as, with a vigorous thrust with his oar, he drove his boat from the bank. His sister did the same directly Madame Seraphin was seated beside her. Standing, looking fixedly on the bank, indifferent to the scene, the widow, pensive and absorbed, fixed her look obstinately on Martial's window, which was discernible from the landing-place through the poplars. During this time the two boats, in the first of which were Nicholas and Fleur-de-Marie and in the other Calabash and Madame Seraphin, left the bank slowly. CHAPTER XVI. THE HAPPINESS OF MEETING. Before the reader is made acquainted with the _denouement_ of the drama then passing in Nicholas's boat, we shall beg leave to retrace our steps. Shortly after Fleur-de-Marie had quitted St. Lazare in company of Madame Seraphin, La Louve also left that prison. Thanks to the recommendations of Madame Armand and the governor, who were desirous of recompensing her for her kindness towards Mont Saint-Jean, the few remaining days the beloved of Martial had still to remain in confinement were remitted her. A complete change had come over this hitherto depraved, degraded, and intractable being. Forever brooding over the description of the peaceful, wild, and retired life, so beautifully depictured by Fleur-de-Marie, La Louve entertained the utmost horror and disgust of her past life. To bury herself with Martial in the deep shades of some vast forest, such was her waking and dreaming thought,--the one fixed idea of her existence, against which all her former evil inclinations had in vain struggled when, separating herself from La Goualeuse, whose growing influence she feared, this singular creature had retired to another part of St. Lazare. To complete this sincere though rapid conversion, still more assured by the ineffectual resistance attempted by the perverse and froward habits of her companion, Fleur-de-Marie, following the dictates of her own natural good sense, had thus reasoned: