"It is he," I said to myself, and resumed my course at the risk of seeing Tom-Bras expire under me. There could be no doubt; my traveling companion made a short cut through the forest, but why did he proceed to the camp, instead of entering the town? A few moments later I arrived before my house. I leaped down from my horse that neighed gladly as he recognized the place. I ran to the door and knocked hard. No one opened to me, but I heard muffled cries within. Again I knocked with the handle of my sword, but in vain. The cries grew louder; I thought I heard Sampso's voice--I tried to break down the door--impossible. Suddenly the window of my wife's room was thrown open. I ran thither sword in hand. At the instant when I arrived at the casement, the shutters were pulled open from within. I rushed through the passage and found myself face to face with a man. The darkness prevented me from recognizing him. He was in the act of fleeing from Ellen's room, whose heartrending cries then reached my ears. To seize the man by the throat at the moment when he put his foot upon the window sill in order to escape, to throw him back into the pitch dark room, and to strike him several times with my sword while I cried: 'Ellen, here I am!'--all this happened with the swiftness of thought. I drew my sword from the body that lay at my feet and was about to plunge it again into the carcass--my rage was uncontrollable--when I felt two arms clasp me convulsively. I thought myself attacked by a second adversary and forthwith ran the other body through. The arms that had been thrown around my neck immediately loosened their hold, and at the same time I heard these words pronounced by an expiring voice: "Schanvoch--you have killed me--thanks, my friend--it is sweet to me to die at your hands--I would not have been able to survive my shame--" It was Ellen's voice. My wife had run, dumb with terror, to place herself under my protection. It was her arms that had clasped me. I heard her fall upon the floor. I remained thunder-struck. My sword dropped from my hand; for several seconds the silence of death reigned in the room that was perfectly dark except for a beam of pale light that fell from the moon through the lattice of one of the shutters that the wind had blown to. The shutter was suddenly thrown open again from without, and by the light of the moon I saw a tall and slender woman, clad in a short red skirt and a silvery corsage, resting with her knee upon the outer window sill and leaning her head into the room say: "Victorin, handsome Tarquin of a new Lucretia, quit the house; the night is far advanced. I saw you enter the door at midnight, the hour agreed upon, the husband being away. You shall now leave your charmer's house by the window, the passage of lovers. You kept your promise--now I am yours. Come, my cart awaits us. Venus will protect us!"