ver them, strongly secured from
without by two bars of iron!

Suspecting a part of the cause of this, La Louve, in a loud, hoarse
voice of mingled fury and deep tenderness, screamed out as loudly as she
could:

"Martial! My man!"

No answer was returned.

Terrified at this silence, La Louve began pacing round and round the
house like a wild beast who scents the spot whither her mate has been
entrapped, and with deep roars and savage growls demands admittance to
him.

Still pursuing her agitated search, La Louve kept shouting from time to
time, "My man! Are you there, my man?" And in her desperate fury she
shook and rattled the bars of the kitchen windows, beat against the
walls, and knocked long and loudly at the door. All at once a dull,
indistinct noise was heard from withinside the house. Eagerly and
attentively La Louve listened; the noise, however, ceased.

"My man heard me! I must and will get in somehow, if I gnaw the door
away with my teeth."

And again she reiterated her frantic cries and adjurations to Martial.
Several faint blows struck inside the closed shutters of Martial's
chamber replied to the yells and screams of La Louve.

"He is there!" cried she, suddenly stopping beneath the window of her
lover. "He is there! I am sure of it; and if all other means fail I will
strip off that tin with my nails, but I will wrench those shutters
open!"

So saying, she glanced frantically around in search of something to aid
her efforts to free her lover, when her eye caught sight of a ladder
partly hanging against one of the outside shutters of the sitting-room.
Hastily pulling the shutter, the more quickly to disengage the ladder,
the key of the outer door, left by the widow on the sill of the window,
fell to the ground.

"Oh, if this be only the right key!" cried La Louve, trying it in the
lock of the entrance door; "I can go straight up stairs to his chamber.
Oh, it turns! It opens!" exclaimed La Louve, with delight; "and my man
is saved!"

Once in the kitchen she was struck by the cries of the two children,
who, shut up in the cellar, and hearing an unusual noise, called loudly
for help. The widow, persuaded that no person would visit the isle or
her dwelling, had contented herself with double-locking the door upon
Francois and Amandine, leaving the key in the lock.

Released by La Louve, the two children hurried from the cellar to the
kitchen.

"Oh, La Louve!" exclaimed Francois, "save our dear