"Alas, good lady! my poor grandmother, who is very, very old, has fallen down in trying to climb up the ravine, and hurt herself very much. I am afraid she has broken her leg, and I am too weak to lift her up myself. _Mon Dieu!_ what shall I do if you will not come and help me? Perhaps my poor grandmother will die!" The Goualeuse, touched with the grief of the little cripple, replied: "I am not very strong myself, my child; but perhaps I can help you to assist your poor grandmother. Let us go to her as quickly as we can! I live at the farm close by here; and, if the poor old woman cannot walk there with us, I will send somebody to help her!" "Oh, good lady, _le bon Dieu_ will bless you for your kindness! It is close by here--not two steps down this hollow way, as I told you. It was in going down the slope that she fell." "You do not belong to this part of the country?" said the Goualeuse, inquiringly following Tortillard, whom our readers have, no doubt, recognised. "No, good lady, we came from Ecouen." "And where are you going?" "To a good clergyman's, who lives on the hill out there," said Bras Rouge's son, to increase Fleur-de-Marie's confidence. "To the Abbé Laport's, perhaps?" "Yes, good lady; to the Abbé Laport's. My poor grandmother knows him very, very well." "And I was going there also. How strange that we should meet," said Fleur-de-Marie, advancing still farther into the hollow way. "Grandmamma, I'm coming, I'm coming! Take courage, and I will bring you help!" cried Tortillard, to forewarn the Schoolmaster and the Chouette to prepare themselves to lay hands on their victim. "Your grandmother, then, did not fall down far off from here?" inquired the Goualeuse. "No, good lady; behind that large tree there, where the road turns, about twenty paces from here." Suddenly Tortillard stopped. The noise of a horse galloping was heard in the silence of the place. "All is lost again!" said Tortillard to himself. The road made a very sudden bend a few yards from the spot where Bras Rouge's son was with the Goualeuse. A horseman appeared at the angle, and when he came nigh to the young girl he stopped. And then was heard the trot of another horse; and some moments after there followed a groom in a brown coat with silver buttons, white leather breeches, and top-boots. A leathern belt secured around his waist his master's macintosh. His master was dressed simply in a stout brown frock-coat, and a pair of light gray trousers, which fitted closely. He was mounted on a thoroughbred and splendid bay horse, which he sat admirably, and which, in spite of the fast gallop, had not a bead of sweat on his skin, which was as bright and brilliant as a star. The groom's gray horse, which stood motionless a few paces behind his master, was also well-bred and perfect of his kind. In the handsome dark face of the gentleman Tortillard recognised the Vicomte de Saint-Rémy, who was supposed to be the lover of the Duchesse de Lucenay.