"Help! Help! Murder!" she screamed. "You're mad! Let me go at once or it will be the worse for you." And he struggled with her to get away, while the air rung with her loud screams for help. At length he got one arm free, although she still clung with desperation to him. "Curse you!" he muttered, between his clenched teeth, raising his fist and dealing her a savage blow in the face. "You've brought it on yourself!" Another half-uttered scream was checked on her lips, and she sank back in a heap on the ground, while Markworth rushed past her, and flew rather than ran down the heights. In spite of lung logic, Clara Kingscott's cries for help remained unheard. No one came to her assistance; and when she recovered her consciousness after the insensibility produced by Markworth's blow, she found herself cold and alone, lying stretched out along the side of the narrow path where she had fallen. And he? Where was he? Gone! After one half-stupefied thought as to where she was, she recollected all, and nerved herself up to the determination of following Markworth to the death! The blood was still trickling down her face from the dastardly blow she had received: it animated her with additional strength and fresh courage; and she seemed like a tigress, and snarled, as it were, at the sight of her own blood! Rising to her feet, she nearly stumbled at first from stiffness and faintness, but by force of will she quickly recovered her strength, and in a few moments felt better, and able to walk. She had marked the spot where Susan had disappeared; thither she bent her steps, and gazed down into the deep descent, hidden now, and black with the dark veil of night. Turning round, and retracing her steps down the winding path, she proceeded to search below. As she projected round an abrupt turn of the road she jostled against a _sergent de ville_--mutual astonishment-- explanations. Speaking rapidly to him in his native tongue, with which she was even better conversant than Markworth, and knew almost as well as a genuine Parisienne, she represented matters to the guardian of the peace. "A murder and an assault has been committed," she said, eagerly gesticulating in her emotion. "I saw the villain throw a girl over that precipice above, and she or her body must be here! Let us search for her; help me to arrest the murderer! Have you heard no cries, seen no one?" No, the _sergent de ville_ had seen no one: he had only just come up the road: the officer whom he had relieved had reported no disturbance. "Had madame cried out? _Mon Dieu_! really? He had heard no cries, in faith! It was very late for madame to be out--did she know what time it was?" "I suppose it is nearly ten o'clock," replied Miss Kingscott. "_Ma foi_! Why it is close on morning. Madame cannot be well"--he meant that the lady, who certainly looked very bedraggled and disorderly, was something infinitely worse.