Peyrol laughed quite loud, tilting his head back. All at once the laugh stopped short and the lieutenant was amazed to see him reel as though he had been hit in the chest. While giving way to his bitter mirth, the rover had caught sight of Arlette’s face at the open window of the lieutenant’s room. He sat heavily on the bench and was unable to make a sound. The lieutenant was startled enough to detach the back of his head from the wall to look at him. Peyrol stooped low suddenly and began to drag the stable fork from its concealment. Then he got on his feet and stood leaning on it, glaring down at Réal, who gazed upwards with languid surprise. Peyrol was asking himself, “Shall I pick him up on that pair of prongs, carry him down and fling him in the sea?” He felt suddenly overcome by a heaviness of arms and a heaviness of heart that made all movement impossible. His stiffened and powerless limbs refused all service.... Let Catherine look after her niece. He was sure that the old woman was not very far away. The lieutenant saw him absorbed in examining the points of the prongs carefully. There was something queer about all this. “Hallo, Peyrol! What’s the matter?” he couldn’t help asking. “I was just looking,” said Peyrol. “One prong is chipped a little. I found this thing in a most unlikely place.” The lieutenant still gazed at him curiously. “I know! It was under the bench.” “H’m,” said Peyrol, who had recovered some self-control. “It belongs to Scevola.” “Does it?” said the lieutenant, falling back again. His interest seemed exhausted, but Peyrol didn’t move. “You go about with a face fit for a funeral,” he remarked suddenly in a deep voice. “Hang it all, lieutenant, I have heard you laugh once or twice, but the devil take me if I ever saw you smile. It is as if you had been bewitched in your cradle.” Lieutenant Réal got up as if moved by a spring. “Bewitched,” he repeated, standing very stiff: “in my cradle, eh?... No, I don’t think it was so early as that.” He walked forward with a tense still face straight at Peyrol as though he had been blind. Startled, the rover stepped out of the way and, turning on his heels, followed him with his eyes. The lieutenant paced on, as if drawn by a magnet, in the direction of the door of the house. Peyrol, his eyes fastened on Réal’s back, let him nearly reach it before he called out tentatively: “I say, lieutenant!” To his extreme surprise, Réal swung round as if to a touch. “Oh yes,” he answered, also in an undertone. “We will have to discuss that matter to-morrow.” Peyrol, who had approached him close, said in a whisper which sounded quite fierce: “Discuss? No! We will have to carry it out to-morrow. I have been waiting half the night just to tell you that.” Lieutenant Réal nodded. The expression on his face was so stony that Peyrol doubted whether he had understood. He added: