kind inquiries of his benefactor as he
received his accustomed alms.

De Lantagnac rode up furiously, followed by Le Gardeur. De Lantagnac
recognized the Bourgeois, who stood in his way talking to the crippled
soldier. He cursed him between his teeth, and lashed his horse with
intent to ride him down as if by accident.

The Bourgeois saw them approach and motioned them to stop, but in
vain. The horse of De Lantagnac just swerved in its course, and without
checking his speed ran over the crippled man, who instantly rolled
in the dust, his face streaming with blood from a sharp stroke of the
horse's shoe upon his forehead.

Immediately following De Lantagnac came Le Gardeur, lashing his horse
and yelling like a demon to all to clear the way.

The Bourgeois was startled at this new danger, not to himself,--he
thought not of himself,--but to the bleeding man lying prostrate upon
the ground. He sprang forward to prevent Le Gardeur's horse going over
him.

He did not, in the haste and confusion of the moment, recognize Le
Gardeur, who, inflamed with wine and frantic with passion, was almost
past recognition by any who knew him in his normal state. Nor did Le
Gardeur, in his frenzy, recognize the presence of the Bourgeois, whose
voice calling him by name, with an appeal to his better nature, would
undoubtedly have checked his headlong career.

The moment was critical. It was one of those points of time where the
threads of many lives and many destinies cross and intersect each other,
and thence part different ways, leading to life or death, happiness or
despair, forever!

Le Gardeur spurred his horse madly over the wounded man who lay upon the
ground; but he did not hear him, he did not see him. Let it be said for
Le Gardeur, if aught can be said in his defence, he did not see him. His
horse was just about to trample upon the prostrate cripple lying in the
dust, when his bridle was suddenly and firmly seized by the hand of the
Bourgeois, and his horse wheeled round with such violence that, rearing
back upon his haunches, he almost threw his rider headlong.

Le Gardeur, not knowing the reason of this sudden interference, and
flaming with wrath, leaped to the ground just at the moment when
Angelique and De Pean rode up. Le Gardeur neither knew nor cared at that
moment who his antagonist was; he saw but a bold, presumptuous man who
had seized his bridle, and whom it was his desire to punish on the spot.

De Pean recog