“A. I hardly know how to tell you. For several nights, I seemed to hear, both in the park and out of the park, round the pavilion, unusual sounds, sometimes footsteps, at other times the cracking of branches. The night before the attack on me, when I did not get to bed before three o’clock in the morning, on our return from the Élysée, I stood for a moment before my window, and I felt sure I saw shadows. “Q. How many? “A. Two. They moved round the lake,—then the moon became clouded and I lost sight of them. At this time of the season, every year, I have generally returned to my apartment in the château for the winter; but this year I said to myself that I would not quit the pavilion before my father had finished the résumé of his works on the ‘Dissociation of Matter’ for the Academy. I did not wish that that important work, which was to have been finished in the course of a few days, should be delayed by a change in our daily habit. You can well understand that I did not wish to speak of my childish fears to my father, nor did I say anything to Daddy Jacques who, I knew, would not have been able to hold his tongue. Knowing that he had a revolver in his room, I took advantage of his absence and borrowed it, placing it in the drawer of my night-table. “Q. You know of no enemies you have? “A. None. “Q. You understand, mademoiselle, that these precautions are calculated to cause surprise? “M. Stangerson. Evidently, my child, such precautions are very surprising. “A. No;—because I have told you that I had been uneasy for two nights. “M. Stangerson. You ought to have told me of that! This misfortune would have been avoided. “Q. The door of The Yellow Room locked, did you go to bed? “A. Yes, and, being very tired, I at once went to sleep. “Q. The night-light was still burning? “A. Yes, but it gave a very feeble light. “Q. Then, mademoiselle, tell us what happened. “A. I do not know whether I had been long asleep, but suddenly I awoke—and uttered a loud cry. “M. Stangerson. Yes—a horrible cry—‘Murder!’—It still rings in my ears. “Q. You uttered a loud cry? “A. A man was in my chamber. He sprang at me and tried to strangle me. I was nearly stifled when suddenly I was able to reach the drawer of my night-table and grasp the revolver which I had placed in it. At that moment the man had forced me to the foot of my bed and brandished over my head a sort of mace. But I had fired. He immediately struck a terrible blow at my head. All that, monsieur, passed more rapidly than I can tell it, and I know nothing more. “Q. Nothing?—Have you no idea as to how the assassin could escape from your chamber? “A. None whatever—I know nothing more. One does not know what is passing around one, when one is unconscious. “Q. Was the man you saw tall or short, little or big? “A. I only saw a shadow which appeared to me formidable. “Q. You cannot give us any indication?