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Updated: June 16, 2025
The last time he had heard Vanne's whistle was a night five years before, when they both joined a gang of river-drivers, and made a raid on some sham American speculators and surveyors and labourers, who were exploiting an oil-well on the property of the old seigneur. The two had come out of the melee with bruised heads, and Vanne with a bullet in his calf.
He saw Vanne Castine in the forearms of the huge beast, with his eyes bulging from his head, his face becoming black, and he saw blind justice in that death grip; Christine's pistol at the bear's head, and the shoulder in the teeth of the beast, and then!
She had once loved Vanne Castine! and now vanity and cowardice, or unscrupulousness, made her lie about it. He would have her at her best a young, vigorous radiant nature for his short life, and then, good- bye, my lover, good-bye! Selfish? Of course. But she would rather she had said it have him for the time he had to live than not at all. Position? What was his position?
He raised his head, but his eyes were misty, and, seeing nothing, he leaned his head on his arm again. Suddenly he felt something near him. He swung round swiftly, and saw Vanne Castine's bear not fifteen-feet away from him! It raised itself on its hind legs, its red eyes rolling, and started towards him.
The old farmhouse had also secretly become a rendezvous for the mysterious Nicolas Lavilette and his rebel comrades. This was known to Mr. Ferrol. One evening he stopped Nic as he was leaving the house, and said: "See, Nic, my boy, what's up? I know a thing or so what's the use of playing peek-a-boo?" "What do you know, Ferrol?" "What's between you and Vanne Castine, for instance.
In old days he and this same Vanne Castine had been in many a scrape together, and Vanne, the elder, had always borne the responsibility of their adventures. Nicolas had had enough of those old days; other ambitions and habits governed him now. He was not exactly the man to go back on a friend, but Castine no longer had any particular claims to friendship.
He swung round and saw men's faces glowing in the light of the fire, and then another face shot in before the others that of Vanne Castine. With a cry of fury he ran forward into the doorway. Castine saw him at the same moment. With a similar instinct each sprang for the other's throat, Castine with a knife in his hand. A cry of astonishment went up from the officers and the men without.
He swung round and saw men's faces glowing in the light of the fire, and then another face shot in before the others that of Vanne Castine. With a cry of fury he ran forward into the doorway. Castine saw him at the same moment. With a similar instinct each sprang for the other's throat, Castine with a knife in his hand. A cry of astonishment went up from the officers and the men without.
"Dance with you here?" she responded incredulously. "Yes, just here," he said, with a dry little laugh, as he ran his arm round her waist and drew her out upon the green. "And who is Vanne Castine?" he asked as they swung away in time with the music. The rest stopped dancing when they saw these two appear in the ring- through curiosity or through courtesy. She did not answer immediately.
He had a kind of exultation at the very fierceness of her love for him, of what she had done to prove her love: her fury at Vanne Castine, the slaughter of the bear, and the intention to kill Vanne himself; and he knew that she would do more than that, if a great test came. Men feel surer of women than women feel of men.
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