“Josephine Balsamo.... How sweet your name is! And how much more mysterious it makes you!... Did Beaumagnan call you a witch?... He was wrong. You’re an enchantress.... You have emerged from the darkness and you’re the light--the light of the sun!... Josephine Balsamo.... Enchantress.... Magician!... What a world opens before me!... What a wealth of happiness I see.... My life began at the very moment at which I took you in my arms.... I have no other memories but the memory of you.... All my hope is in you.... Heavens how beautiful you are!... It is enough to make one weep with despair.” He uttered these impassioned words, leaning over her, his mouth close to her mouth; but the kiss he had stolen was the only caress he allowed himself. There was not only a voluptuousness in the smile of Josephine Balsamo, but also such a modesty that he felt a profound respect for her; and his exaltation ended in the words of genuine gravity, full of juvenile devotion. “I will help you.... The rest of the world shall be able to do nothing against you.... If you desire to reach, in spite of them, the goal at which they are aiming, I promise you that you shall succeed.... Far from you or near you, I shall always be your defender and savior.... Trust in my devotion.” At last he went to sleep, murmuring promises and oaths which had become rather incoherent; and it was a profound and dreamless sleep like the sleep of children who have to restore their overdriven young organizations. * * * * * The church clock struck eleven. He counted the strokes with a growing surprise. “Eleven o’clock in the morning! Is it really possible?” he cried. The light was filtering in through the chinks in the shutters and through openings under the old thatched roof. On the right, even, a ray of sunlight fell on the floor. “Where are you?” he said in a dazed voice. “I do not see you.” The lamp had been extinguished. He sprang to the shutters and pulled them open. A flood of light filled the loft; but it did not reveal Josephine Balsamo. He sprang upon the trusses of hay and in a childish fury flung them aside. No one. Josephine Balsamo had disappeared. He hurried down from the loft, hunted through the park, fairly ransacked the plateau and the road. In vain. In spite of the injury to her foot which had, the night before, made it impossible for her to set it on the ground. She had left their hiding-place, crossed the park and the plateau and got away.... He returned to the barn to make a minute inspection of it. He did not have to seek long. He saw on the floor a rectangular piece of cardboard. He picked it up. It was the photograph of the Countess of Cagliostro. On the back of it, written in pencil, were these two lines: “_My rescuer has all my gratitude, but he must not try to see me again._” CHAPTER V. ONE OF THE SEVEN BRANCHES