About Escampobar the air was murky but calm and the silence was so profound that it was possible to hear the first heavy drops of rain striking the ground. In the intimidating shadow of the storm-cloud, Arlette stood irresolute for a moment, but it was to Peyrol, the man of mystery and power, that her thoughts turned. She was ready to embrace his knees, to entreat and to scold. “Peyrol, Peyrol!” she cried twice, and lent her ear as if expecting an answer. Then she shouted: “I want him back.” Catherine, alone in the kitchen, moving with dignity, sat down in the armchair with the tall back, like a senator in his curule chair awaiting the blow of a barbarous fate. Arlette flew down the slope. The first sign of her coming was a faint thin scream which really the rover alone heard and understood. He pressed his lips in a particular way, showing his appreciation of the coming difficulty. The next moment he saw, poised on a detached boulder and thinly veiled by the first perpendicular shower, Arlette, who, catching sight of the tartane with the men on board of her, let out a prolonged shriek of mingled triumph and despair: “Peyrol! Help! Pey----rol!” Réal jumped to his feet with an extremely scared face, but Peyrol extended an arresting arm. “She is calling to me,” he said, gazing at the figure poised on the rock. “Well leaped! Sacré nom!... Well leaped!” And he muttered to himself soberly: “She will break her legs or her neck.” “I see you, Peyrol,” screamed Arlette, who seemed to be flying through the air. “Don’t you dare.” “Yes, here I am,” shouted the rover, striking his breast with his fist.