A moment more and the quiet of the sleeping house was broken by a hideous commotion. There was a sound of a door pushed open, a loud exclamation, a momentary conflict of voices, the door dashed back against the wall. Then a wild, long cry, a dull thud upon the floor. By that time Père Goudron had got out of his bed, and was calling upon Blanchette and Ursule, and scrambling for a light, and Helen waking in wild terror out of her sleep, had sprung up and seized her candle. She was so transported with anxiety and terror that the voices that followed conveyed no information to her ear; but M. Goudron heard the _persiennes_ dashed open, and a muffled leap into the street. Next moment Helen’s cries resounded through the house and rang out into the night. “Papa, papa, speak to me!” she cried; “speak to me, papa!” Madame Dupré, who had just fastened up her last shutter, heard it, and rushed to the door--then ran back again and dragged Baptiste out of bed in his first sleep. “_L’Anglais!_--something has happened to _l’Anglais_,” she said. And then by degrees one house after another woke, and eager heads peered forth at the doors and windows. Baptiste, rushing across the road half dressed, with Auguste at his heels, was called to from one side and another in a dozen startled voices. “What is it? What has happened?” they all asked breathless. He answered only by repeating what his mother had told him. “_L’Anglais_--something has happened to _l’Anglais_,” Baptiste said. Two men were coming down the road from the _château_. It was not much more than ten o’clock, and Sir John had come out with Charley, much against the will of the latter, to smoke his cigar. “I’ll take a turn with you,” the baronet had said. “It’s muggy to-night, with all those trees about. If you had hit it off with Thérèse, Charley, I’d have advised you to thin these woods. But it’s no use thinking about that. What an odd piece of luck, however, that you should have found this Miss--Miss----” “Helen,” said Ashton, with a bitterness he could scarcely restrain. Rather this familiarity than to speak of her by a false name. “Miss--Helen--that’s it. Cécile never says the other name. You don’t say you know the father, Charley? I’d advise you to find out what sort of person he is, and all about him, before you go any farther, old man. It is queer that, just at the other one’s door, so to speak, you should have found this Miss--Helen.” “I wish you would not speak of the other one, John. It is very disrespectful to a very charming young lady. There has never been any other one. You offend me when you talk so, by offending her. I have the greatest reverence for the ladies here--both----” “You need not be so particular. She would not be offended. She knows very well that this marriage is _manqué_, and she is not inconsolable. But, look here: you must not go a step further till you know all particulars. I say, what is that? What an infernal row!” said Sir John.