h he might fall, the pit
digged by a widow, who, no doubt, would not hesitate to marry a divorced
Catholic philosopher, if he could get a divorce by hook or by crook.
Jean Jacques had said that he was going to Virginie Poucette's place
the next day. That was as bad as it could be; yet there was this to
the good, that it was to-morrow and not to-day; and who could tell what
might happen between to-day and to-morrow!

A moment later the three were standing outside the office in the street.
As Jean Jacques climbed into his red wagon, Virginie Poucette's eyes
were attracted to the northern sky where a reddish glow appeared, and
she gave an exclamation of surprise.

"That must be a fire," she said, pointing.

"A bit of pine-land probably," said M. Fille--with anxiety, however, for
the red glow lay in the direction of St. Saviour's where were the
Manor Cartier and Jean Jacques' mills. Maitre Fille was possessed of a
superstition that all the things which threaten a man's life to wreck
it, operate awhile in their many fields before they converge like an
army in one field to deliver the last attack on their victim. It would
not have seemed strange to him, if out of the night a voice of the
unseen had said that the glow in the sky came from the Manor Cartier.
This very day three things had smitten Jean Jacques, and, if three, why
not four or five, or fifty!

With a strange fascination Jean Jacques' eyes were fastened on the glow.
He clucked to his horses, and they started jerkily away. M. Fille and
the widow Poucette said good-bye to him, but he did not hear, or if he
heard, he did not heed. His look was set upon the red reflection which
widened in the sky and seemed to grow nearer and nearer. The horses
quickened their pace. He touched them with the whip, and they went
faster. The glow increased as he left Vilray behind. He gave the horses
the whip again sharply, and they broke into a gallop. Yet his eyes
scarcely left the sky. The crimson glow drew him, held him, till his
brain was afire also. Jean Jacques had a premonition and a conviction
which was even deeper than the imagination of M. Fille.

In Vilray, behind him, the telegraph clerk was in the street shouting to
someone to summon the local fire-brigade to go to St. Saviour's.

"What is it--what is it?" asked M. Fille of the telegraph clerk in
marked agitation.

"It's M'sieu' Jean Jacques' flour-mill," was the reply.

Wagons and buggies and carts began to take th