That night Scevola put her under the care of a woman called Perose. She was young and pretty, and was a native of Arles, her mother’s country. She kept an inn. That woman locked her up in her own room, which was next to the room where the patriots kept on shouting, singing and making speeches far into the night. Several times the woman would look in for a moment, make a hopeless gesture at her with both arms, and vanish again. Later, on many other nights, when all the band lay asleep on benches and on the floor, Perose would steal into the room, fall on her knees by the bed on which Arlette sat upright, open-eyed and raving silently to herself, embrace her feet and cry herself to sleep. But in the morning she would jump up briskly and say: “Come. The great affair is to keep our life in our bodies. Come along to help in the work of justice”; and they would join the band that was making ready for another day of traitor-hunting. But after a time the victims, of which the streets were full at first, had to be sought for in back yards, ferreted out of their hiding-places, dragged up out of the cellars or down from the garrets of the houses, which would be entered by the band with howls of death and vengeance. “Then, Monsieur l’Abbé,” said Arlette, “I let myself go at last. I could resist no longer. I said to myself: ‘If it is so then it must be right.’ But most of the time I was like a person half asleep and dreaming things that it is impossible to believe. About that time, I don’t know why, the woman Perose hinted to me that Scevola was a poor creature. Next night, while all the band lay fast asleep in the big room, Perose and Scevola helped me out of the window into the street and led me to the quay behind the arsenal. Scevola had found our tartane lying at the pontoon and one of the Madrague men with her. The other had disappeared. Perose fell on my neck and cried a little. She gave me a kiss and said: ‘My time will come soon. You, Scevola, don’t you show yourself in Toulon, because nobody believes in you any more. Adieu, Arlette. Vive la Nation!’ and she vanished in the night. I waited on the pontoon shivering in my torn clothes, listening to Scevola and the man throwing dead bodies overboard out of the tartane. Splash, splash, splash. And suddenly I felt I must run away, but they were after me in a moment, dragged me back and threw me down into that cabin which smelt of blood. But when I got back to the farm all feeling had left me. I did not feel myself exist. I saw things round me here and there, but I couldn’t look at anything for long. Something was gone out of me. I know now that it was not my heart, but then I didn’t mind what it was. I felt light and empty, and a little cold all the time, but I could smile at people. Nothing could matter. Nothing could mean anything. I cared for no one. I wanted nothing. I wasn’t alive at all, Monsieur l’Abbé. People seemed to see me and would talk to me, and it seemed funny--till one day I felt my