icy-cold and clammy, trembled in the doctor's grasp.

With his other hand, the doctor clutched his revolver, with his finger
on the trigger. In spite of his pledged word, he did not hesitate. If
the adversary touched the end of the bed, the shot would be fired at a
venture.

The adversary took another step and then stopped again. And there was
something awful about that silence, that impassive silence, that
darkness in which those human beings were peering at one another,
wildly.

Who was it looming in the murky darkness? Who was the man? What horrible
enmity was it that turned his hand against the girl and what abominable
aim was he pursuing?

Terrified though they were, Jeanne and the doctor thought only of that
one thing: to see, to learn the truth, to gaze upon the adversary's
face.

He took one more step and did not move again. It seemed to them that his
figure stood out, darker, against the dark space and that his arm rose
slowly, slowly....

A minute passed and then another minute....

And, suddenly, beyond the man, on the right a sharp click.... A bright
light flashed, was flung upon the man, lit him full in the face,
remorselessly.

Jeanne gave a cry of affright. She had seen--standing over her, with a
dagger in his hand--she had seen ... her father!

Almost at the same time, though the light was already turned off, there
came a report: the doctor had fired.

"Dash it all, don't shoot!" roared Lupin.

He threw his arms round the doctor, who choked out:

"Didn't you see?... Didn't you see?... Listen!... He's escaping!..."

"Let him escape: it's the best thing that could happen."

He pressed the spring of his electric lantern again, ran to the
dressing-room, made certain that the man had disappeared and, returning
quietly to the table, lit the lamp.

Jeanne lay on her bed, pallid, in a dead faint.

The doctor, huddled in his chair, emitted inarticulate sounds.

"Come," said Lupin, laughing, "pull yourself together. There is nothing
to excite ourselves about: it's all over."

"Her father!... Her father!" moaned the old doctor.

"If you please, doctor, Mlle. Darcieux is ill. Look after her."

Without more words, Lupin went back to the dressing-room and stepped out
on the window-ledge. A ladder stood against the ledge. He ran down it.
Skirting the wall of the house, twenty steps farther, he tripped over
the rungs of a rope-ladder, which he climbed and found himself in M.
Darcieux's bedroom.