alone here!... Bobinette you are alone here with
me!"

There was a pause. Vagualame's voice was once more mocking.

"Am I to think you are afraid?"

"No, Vagualame, I am not afraid; but."...

"But you are trembling like a leaf!" cried Vagualame, with a burst of
laughter which sounded strangely false. He seized Bobinette in an iron
grip and forced her forward.

"Come! Come under shelter!" They moved towards the black blot
Bobinette had not yet identified. Almost directly they were leaning
against a gipsy van drawn up at the side of the road.

"Your future domicile," said Vagualame, showing the van to the
bewildered Bobinette. "But this is not the time to install
yourself--there are things to be said first--between you and me,
Bobinette!"

The bandit was enveloped from head to foot in a dark cloak. All
Bobinette could see of him was his profile: his features were
concealed by a soft felt hat with turned-down brim, which showed at
intervals against the sky when the lightning flashed and flickered.

The girl shivered: her master's last words were full of some dark
menace.

"What do you want to say?" she murmured.

Vagualame took a few steps forward, then returned to where the girl
was leaning against the van.

"Listen to me, Bobinette, listen, for, by Heaven, the words I am about
to utter are the last you will ever hear."

Before Bobinette could interrupt, Vagualame continued:

"Tell me, do you know of anything more wicked, more contemptible, more
vile, more shameful than treachery, than betrayal, than a trap set, a
snare laid to catch one who has always been your friend, your
defender?... Tell me, Bobinette, who is more hateful than the Judas
who sells you with a kiss?... Tell me, Bobinette, who is less worthy
of pity than the cowardly criminal who betrays his accomplice?... Than
the bandit who delivers up his chief for money, perhaps for less than
money--because of fear--who betrays his master to save his own
skin?"...

Bobinette did not seem to understand one word of this apostrophe. She
kept silence, terrified, crushed, in front of the awful abyss she
divined.

Vagualame seized her by the shoulders and shook her brutally,
thrusting her fiercely against the side of the van.

"Speak! Reply, Bobinette! I command you!"

"I do not understand you! I am afraid!"

A shout of ferocious laughter burst from Vagualame.

"You do not understand me! You are afraid?... Ah! If you are afraid it
is because you