Before going to rest, she put in order certain books and papers, for she studied a great deal, and with a genuine relish; she heard it strike one o'clock in the morning, and went to shut her blinds before disrobing. At that moment she heard a sharp stroke against the glass of the opposite casement, and her eyes, following the direction of the sound, saw a pane fall rattling from the lighted window of the Marquis. Astonished by this accident, and by the silence which followed, Caroline listened attentively. No one stirred; no one had heard it. Gradually, confused sounds reached her, feeble plaints at first, and then stifled cries and a species of rattle. "Some one is assassinating the Marquis," was her first thought, for the sinister murmurs came evidently from his room. What should she do? Call, find some one, tell the Duke who lodged still farther away?--all that would take too much time, and, besides, under the oppression of such a warning there must be no indecision. Caroline measured the distance with her eye: there were twenty paces to go across the grass. If malefactors had penetrated to M. de Villemer's room it must have been by the stairs of the Griffin turret which was opposite to that of the Fox. These two cages with stairways in them bore the names of the emblems rudely sculptured on the tympans of their portals. The stairs of the Fox led away on this side from Caroline's room. No one else could arrive on the scene so soon as she could, and her solitary approach might cause the assassins to release the Marquis. In the Griffin turret there was besides the rope of a little alarm bell. She said all this to herself while running, and by the time she had finished saying it, she had reached this door, which she found open. The Duke had gone out there, intending to return in the same way without causing the hinges to creak, and thinking nothing about robbers, an unknown class in that country. Caroline, however, all the more confirmed in the imaginary construction she had put upon the matter, bounded up the spiral stairway of stone. Hearing nothing at all there, she advanced along the passage, and stopped hesitating, before the door of the Marquis's apartment. She ventured to knock, but received no answer. There were certainly no assassins near her, yet what were the cries which she had heard? An accident of some kind, but undoubtedly a serious one, and one which made immediate assistance necessary. She pushed open the door, that was not even latched, and found M. de Villemer extended upon the floor, near the window which he had not had strength enough to open, and of which he had broken the glass to gain air, feeling himself overwhelmed by a sudden strangling.