The servants were hastening to obey when the furious gallop of a horse and the rapid roll of carriage-wheels were heard. “Here they come!” exclaimed the gardener, “here they come!” Madame d’Escorval, followed by the servants, rushed to the gate just in time to see a cabriolet enter the courtyard, and the panting horse, flecked with foam, miss his footing, and fall. The Abbe Midon and Maurice had already sprung to the ground and were removing an apparently lifeless body from the vehicle. Even Marie-Anne’s great energy had not been able to resist so many successive shocks. The last trial had overwhelmed her. Once in the carriage, all immediate danger having disappeared, the excitement which had sustained her fled. She became unconscious, and all efforts had hitherto failed to restore her. Madame d’Escorval, however, did not recognize Mademoiselle Lacheneur in her masculine attire. She only saw that the body Maurice and the priest were carrying was not her husband, and turning to her son exclaimed in a stifled voice. “And your father--your father where is he?” Until that moment, Maurice and the cure had comforted themselves with the hope that M. d’Escorval would reach home before them. They were now cruelly undeceived. Maurice tottered, and almost dropped his precious burden. The abbe perceived his anguish and made a sign to two servants who gently lifted Marie-Anne, and bore her to the house. Then turning to Madame d’Escorval the cure exclaimed at hazard. “The baron will soon be here, madame, he fled first--” “The baron d’Escorval could not have fled,” she interrupted. “A general does not desert when he is face to face with the enemy. If a panic seizes his soldiers, he rushes to the front, and either leads them back to combat, or sacrifices his own life.” “Mother!” faltered Maurice; “mother!” “Oh! do not try to deceive me. My husband was the organizer of this conspiracy--If his confederates have been beaten and dispersed they must have proved themselves cowards. Heaven have mercy upon me, my husband is dead!” In spite of the abbe’s quickness of perception, he could not understand these assertions on the part of the baroness; and feared that sorrow and terror had tampered with her mind. “Ah! madame,” he exclaimed, “the baron had nothing to do with this movement: far from it--” He paused; they were standing in the court-yard, in the full glare of the torches lighted by the servants a moment previously. Any one passing along the public road could hear and see everything; and in the present situation such imprudence might have fatal results. “Come, Madame,” accordingly resumed the priest, leading the baroness toward the house “and you Maurice, come as well!”