Sidonie, the picture of sorrow, was leaning against the trunk of a giant oak crying as though her heart would break. In her merry moods she was never at a loss for friends, but in her sorrow she wept alone. Her life seemed ended. She felt crushed and soul wounded. However, when Mademoiselle Faillot approached her, and addressed her in mocking terms, Sidonie staunchly defended herself. “Don’t provoke me! Don’t provoke me, I say.” “What! you threaten?” “Never mind. Only go, I tell you!” “Insolent hussy!” cried the enraged Léocadia. “Take care!” replied Sidonie. “But for you no one would have believed Bruno. You shall pay for it. The occasion for revenge always comes. And I will find a way to get mine if I have to wait until the day of your death.” Mademoiselle Faillot did not like to have her death mentioned in such a manner. “Come, come, don’t talk so,” she said, meekly. Then, followed by a number of her satellites, she walked away. Jeannille Marselon, to whom none paid any attention, had planted herself in front of the gamekeeper’s house and was watching the windows of the rooms in which Bruno and Catherine were imprisoned. There she stood as though turned to stone. As Léocadia, however, approached the house, Jeannille quietly directed her steps toward Sidonie. Touching the lame girl softly on the shoulder, she whispered: “_L’Ours!_” Sidonie uttered a hopeful, joyful cry. Taking Jeannille’s hand she raised it to her lips, saying: “I thank you!” Then she rose with a radiant face. In every instance but one, where death or danger had threatened Bruno, Jean Manant--L’Ours as he was called--had come to his rescue. “Why did I not think of him before, Aunt Jeannille? Do you know where he is?” “At Vaumarin.” “Not so far but that I shall find him.” The weather had changed. Immense clouds were chasing each other across the heavens. A storm was imminent. But Sidonie knew no fear. Covered with her mantle, a narrow cap on her head, and sabots on her feet, the brave girl fared forth and soon disappeared among the forest trees. Jeannille Marselon watched her little red skirt until she was lost to view. “Vaumarin,” she softly murmured. The place was seven good miles away, and the roads were bad. Up hill and down dale for seven miles the little maid must go and come back again, over the mountainous roads. What love, what devotion impelled her! It was to save the man she adored. If it were in his power Jean Manant would save Bruno. Of that she was convinced. Never before had she attempted such an undertaking. It was not the journey to Vaumarin she dreaded, but the return. “Well,” she murmured to herself, “I will stay there awhile, and Jean can come on at once.” And so the lame girl hobbled on. At about one o’clock she reached a darker and more dismal part of the wood. It began to snow.