When the gardener was telling me this story, he declared again and
again that he had fancied the noise he had heard was made by some of
the servants trying to leave the house secretly, and for this reason
he didn't give the alarm. However, he hurried to the pavilion, but on
seeing no light there, he went back to bed with an easy mind."

"And it was Mademoiselle Hermine eloping with a lover?" asked M.
Fortunat.

Madame Vantrasson seemed as disappointed as an actor who has been
deprived of an opportunity of producing a grand effect. "Wait a moment,"
she replied, "and you'll see. The night passed, morning came, and
then the breakfast hour. But Mademoiselle Hermine did not make her
appearance. Some one was sent to rap at her door--there was no answer.
The door was opened--the young lady was not in her room, and the bed had
not even been disturbed. In a few moments the whole household was in
the wildest commotion; the mother weeping, and the father half wild
with rage and sorrow. Of course, the next thought was of Mademoiselle
Hermine's brother, and he was sent for. But, he, too, was not in his
room, and his bed had not been touched. The excitement was becoming
frenzy, when it occurred to the gardener to mention what he had heard
and seen on the previous night. They hastened to the pavilion, and
discovered what? Why, M. Raymond stretched upon the ground, stiff, cold,
and motionless, weltering in his own blood. One of his rigid hands still
grasped a sword. They lifted him up, carried him to the house, laid him
upon his bed, and sent for a physician. He had received two dangerous
wounds; one in the throat, the other in the breast. For more than a
month he hung between life and death, and six weeks elapsed before he
had strength to relate what had happened. He was lighting a cigar at his
window when he thought he saw a woman's form flit through the garden.
A suspicion that it might be his sister flashed through his mind; so he
hastened down, stole noiselessly into the pavilion, and there he found
his sister and a young man who was absolutely unknown to him. He might
have killed the intruder, but instead of doing so, he told him they
would fight then and there. Weapons were within reach, and they fought,
with the result that Raymond was wounded twice, in quick succession, and
fell. His adversary, supposing him dead, thereupon fled from the spot,
taking Mademoiselle Hermine with him."

At this point in her narrative Madame Va