For a few moments she stood there motionless as a statue, then suddenly she staggered, reeled, and collapsed, inert and senseless, upon the floor. CHAPTER IX. IN THE NIGHT. Not until several hours afterwards did Jean regain consciousness. When slowly she opened her eyes and gazed wonderingly about the silent room, she found herself lying in a heap upon the floor, a terrible throbbing across her brow and a lump in her throat. Gradually she recollected the horror of that half-hour before she had fainted, and slowly she raised herself and tottered to a chair. Upon the table stood the empty bottle from which Ralph and Adolphe had drunk glass after glass of red wine, before going forth to commit the crime. There were the three empty plates, too; while on the top of the cupboard the cheap, evil-smelling lamp which Jean had lit on Ralph's arrival, was burning low, shedding a small zone of dim, yellow light. "Gone!" she gasped aloud. "Oh, I can't believe it! Ralph--my own Ralph--a common thief! Impossible! impossible!" Then she sobbed, burying her pale face in both her hands in blank despair. The horrible, bitter truth had been forced upon her, and she saw it in all its hideousness. "He raised his hand to strike me down!" she murmured to herself. "He would have struck me, had it not been for Adolphe. Ah! yes," she sighed. "Adolphe knows--he knows the truth--of all I have suffered. Ralph is a thief, and--and the police will one day arrest him. He will be tried and punished, and I shall be left alone--alone!" For a long time the despairing girl sat in her lonely room, bent and utterly crushed. Her thoughts were of the man she loved, and who, in return, had now revealed his contempt, even hatred. He had told her that she was but an encumbrance. He had not minced matters, but spoken openly and frankly, like the brute he was. She was unaware that "The American" was well known in the Montmartre as a keen, unscrupulous man, against whom were so many charges. Next to Bonnemain himself, he had been the most daring and expert of all that dangerous gang. How cleverly he had deceived her, however, she now knew. Her senses seemed benumbed, for the blow had rendered her, for the time, insensible. A full hour went by. The room was silent, save that from the courtyard below rose the drunken voice of a workman who lived in the ground-floor flat--the husband of the slatternly _concierge_--who had just returned. The broken clock still pointed to the hour of four, therefore she had no idea of the time, but sat staring in front of her, like one in a dream. Once or twice her breast slowly heaved and fell beneath her neat, black gown. Then at last she rose and, crossing to the cupboard with firm resolve, took out a small, ten-centime bottle of ink and an envelope. Seating herself at the table, she took the pen in her trembling fingers, and with tears falling upon the paper, traced uneven words in French, as follows: