annihilated by the fires of heaven which were flashing all around me, it was only because they could not enter my magic ring.  Thus was I admiring my own deceitful work!  That foolish reason prevented me from leaving the circle in spite of the fear which caused me to shudder.  If it had not been for that belief, the result of a cowardly fright, I would not have remained one minute where I was, and my hurried flight would no doubt have opened the eyes of my two dupes, who could not have failed to see that, far from being a magician, I was only a poltroon.  The violence of the wind, the claps of thunder, the piercing cold, and above all, fear, made me tremble all over like an aspen leaf.  My system, which I thought proof against every accident, had vanished:  I acknowledged an avenging God who had waited for this opportunity of punishing me at one blow for all my sins, and of annihilating me, in order to put an end to my want of faith.  The complete immobility which paralyzed all my limbs seemed to me a proof of the uselessness of my repentance, and that conviction only increased my consternation.

But the roaring of the thunder dies away, the rain begins to fall heavily, danger vanishes, and I feel my courage reviving.  Such is man! or at all events, such was I at that moment.  It was raining so fast that, if it had continued pouring with the same violence for a quarter of an hour, the country would have been inundated.  As soon as the rain had ceased, the wind abated, the clouds were dispersed, and the moon shone in all its splendour, like silver in the pure, blue sky.  I take up my magic ring, and telling the two friends to retire to their beds without speaking to me, I hurry to my room.  I still felt rather shaken, and, casting my eyes on Javotte, I thought her so pretty that I felt positively frightened.  I allowed her to dry me, and after that necessary operation I told her piteously to go to bed.  The next morning she told me that, when she saw me come in, shaking all over in spite of the heat, she had herself shuddered with fear.

After eight hours of sound sleep I felt all right, but I had had enough of the comedy, and to my great surprise the sight of Genevieve did not move me in any way.  The obedient Javotte had certainly not changed, but I was not the same.  I was for the first time in my life reduced to a state of apathy, and in consequence of the superstitious ideas which had crowded in my mind the previous night I imagined that the innocence of that young girl was under the special protection of Heaven, and that if I had dared to rob her of her virginity the most rapid and terrible death would have been my punishment.

At all events, thanks to my youth and my exalted ideas, I fancied that through my self-denying resolutions the father would not be so great a dupe, and the daughter not so unhappy, unless the result should prove as unfortunate for her as it had been for poor Lucy, of Pasean.