“Father!—Father!—Is it you? What has happened to you?” she cried, distractedly. After a moment, the Comte de Gesvres moved. In a broken voice, he said: “Don’t be afraid—I am not wounded—Daval?—Is he alive?—The knife?—The knife?—” Two men-servants now arrived with candles. Raymonde flung herself down before the other body and recognized Jean Daval, the count’s private secretary. A little stream of blood trickled from his neck. His face already wore the pallor of death. Then she rose, returned to the drawing room, took a gun that hung in a trophy of arms on the wall and went out on the balcony. Not more than fifty or sixty seconds had elapsed since the man had set his foot on the top rung of the ladder. He could not, therefore, be very far away, the more so as he had taken the precaution to remove the ladder, in order to prevent the inmates of the house from using it. And soon she saw him skirting the remains of the old cloister. She put the gun to her shoulder, calmly took aim and fired. The man fell. “That’s done it! That’s done it!” said one of the servants. “We’ve got this one. I’ll run down.” “No, Victor, he’s getting up.... You had better go down by the staircase and make straight for the little door in the wall. That’s the only way he can escape.” Victor hurried off, but, before he reached the park, the man fell down again. Raymonde called the other servant: “Albert, do you see him down there? Near the main cloister?—” “Yes, he’s crawling in the grass. He’s done for—” “Watch him from here.” “There’s no way of escape for him. On the right of the ruins is the open lawn—” “And, Victor, do you guard the door, on the left,” she said, taking up her gun. “But, surely, you are not going down, miss?” “Yes, yes,” she said, with a resolute accent and abrupt movements; “let me be—I have a cartridge left—If he stirs—” She went out. A moment later, Albert saw her going toward the ruins. He called to her from the window: “He’s dragged himself behind the cloister. I can’t see him. Be careful, miss—” Raymonde went round the old cloisters, to cut off the man’s retreat, and Albert soon lost sight of her. After a few minutes, as he did not see her return, he became uneasy and, keeping his eye on the ruins, instead of going down by the stairs he made an effort to reach the ladder. When he had succeeded, he scrambled down and ran straight to the cloisters near which he had seen the man last. Thirty paces farther, he found Raymonde, who was searching with Victor. “Well?” he asked. “There’s no laying one’s hands on him,” replied Victor. “The little door?” “I’ve been there; here’s the key.” “Still—he must—” “Oh, we’ve got him safe enough, the scoundrel—He’ll be ours in ten minutes.” The farmer and his son, awakened by the shot, now came from the farm buildings, which were at some distance on the right, but within the circuit of the walls. They had met no one.