"I do not know," the Abbess replied shakily. It was being borne in on her that not two lives, but the lives of many, of scores and of hundreds, might pay for what she had done. And she was new to the work. "I have not seen her," she repeated with greater firmness, as she summoned hate to her support, and called up before her fancy the Countess's childish attractions. "She must be sleeping." "Sleeping?" the Vicomte echoed in astonishment. He was going to add more when another took the words out of his mouth. "What is that?" It was Roger's voice fiercely raised. "By Heaven! It is Fulbert." It was Fulbert. As the men, of whom some were saddling--for the light was beginning to appear--pressed forward to look, the steward crawled out of the gloom about the brook, and, raising himself on one hand, made painful efforts to speak. He looked like a dead man risen; nor did the uncertain light of the lanthorns take from the horror of his appearance. Probably he had been left for dead, for the smashing blow of some blunt weapon had beaten in one temple and flooded his face and beard with blood. The Abbess, faint and sick, appalled by this first sign of her handiwork, hid her eyes. "Follow! Follow!" the poor creature muttered, swaying as he strove to rise to his feet. "A rescue!" "With the first light," the Bat answered him. "With the first light! How many are they?" But he only muttered, "Follow! A rescue! A rescue!" and repeated those words in such a tone that it was plain that he no longer understood them, but said them mechanically. Perhaps they had been the last he had uttered before he was struck down. The Bat saw how it was with him; he had seen men in that state before. "With the first light!" he said, to soothe him. "With the first light we follow!" Then turning to his men he bade them carry the poor fellow in and see to his hurts. Roger sprang forward, eager to help. And they were bearing the man to the rear, and the Abbess had taken heart to uncover her eyes, while still averting them, when a strange sound broke from her lips--lips blanched in an instant to the colour of paper. It caught the ear of the Bat, who stood nearest to her. He turned. The Abbess, with arm outstretched, was pointing to the door of the Countess's hut. There, visible, though she seemed to shrink from sight, and even raised her hand in deprecation, stood the Countess herself. "By Heaven!" the Bat cried. And he stood. While Roger, in place of advancing, gazed on her as on a ghost. She tried to speak, but no sound came. And for the Abbess she had as easily spoken as the dead. Her senses tottered, the slim figure danced before her eyes, the voices of those who spoke came from a great way off. It was the Vicomte who, being the least concerned, was first to find his voice. "Is it you, Countess?" he quavered. The Countess nodded. She could not speak. "But how--how have you escaped?"