ning. You are to
see your brother and sister at once, and say to them: 'If you let La
Pechina alone, Pere Rigou will save Nicolas from the conscription.'"

"You are the devil incarnate!" cried Marie. "They do say you've signed a
compact with him. Is that true?"

"Yes," replied Rigou, gravely.

"I heard it, but I didn't believe it."

"He has guaranteed that no attacks aimed at me shall hurt me; that I
shall never be robbed; that I shall live a hundred years and succeed
in everything I undertake, and be as young to the day of my death as a
two-year old cockerel--"

"Well, if that's so," said Marie, "it must be _devilishly_ easy for you
to save my brother from the conscription--"

"If he chooses, that's to say. He'll have to lose a finger," returned
Rigou. "I'll tell him how."

"Look out, you are taking the upper road!" exclaimed Marie.

"I never go by the lower at night," said the ex-monk.

"On account of the cross?" said Marie, naively.

"That's it, sly-boots," replied her diabolical companion.

They had reached a spot where the high-road cuts through a slight
elevation of ground, making on each side of it a rather steep slope,
such as we often see on the mail-roads of France. At the end of
this little gorge, which is about a hundred feet long, the roads to
Ronquerolles and to Cerneux meet and form an open space, in the centre
of which stands a cross. From either slope a man could aim at a victim
and kill him at close quarters, with all the more ease because the
little hill is covered with vines, and the evil-doer could lie in ambush
among the briers and brambles that overgrow them. We can readily imagine
why the usurer did not take that road after dark. The Thune flows round
the little hill; and the place is called the Close of the Cross. No
spot was ever more adapted for revenge or murder, for the road to
Ronquerolles continues to the bridge over the Avonne in front of the
pavilion of the Rendezvous, while that to Cerneux leads off above
the mail-road; so that between the four roads,--to Les Aigues,
Ville-aux-Fayes, Ronquerolles, and Cerneux,--a murderer could choose his
line of retreat and leave his pursuers in uncertainty.

"I shall drop you at the entrance of the village," said Rigou when they
neared the first houses of Blangy.

"Because you are afraid of Annette, old coward!" cried Marie. "When
are you going to send her away? you have had her now three years. What
amuses me is that your old woman st