"Quit, now, Alice," he begged, half in fun and half in abject
fear; "please quit--I surrender!"

She thrust to the wall on either side of him, then springing
lightly backward a pace, stood at guard. Her thick yellow hair had
fallen over her neck and shoulders in a loose wavy mass, out of
which her face beamed with a bewitching effect upon her captive.

Rene, glad enough to have a cessation of his peril, stood laughing
dryly; but the singing down at the river house was swelling louder
and he made another movement to go.

"You surrendered, you remember," cried Alice, renewing the sword-
play; "sit down on the chair there and make yourself comfortable.
You are not going down yonder to-night; you are going to stay here
and talk with me and Mother Roussillon; we are lonesome and you
are good company."

A shot rang out keen and clear; there was a sudden tumult that
broke up the distant singing; and presently more firing at varying
intervals cut the night air from the direction of the river.

Jean, the hunchback, came in to say that there was a row of some
sort; he had seen men running across the common as if in pursuit
of a fugitive; but the moonlight was so dim that he could not be
sure what it all meant.

Rene picked up his cap and bolted out of the house.