the servants."

Hector went to the door and examined it.

"I do not think so," said he. "A servant would have shut the bolts;
here they are, drawn back. Yet I myself shut the door to-night, and
distinctly recollect fastening the bolts."

"It's very strange!"

"And all the more so, look you, because the traces of the water do
not go much beyond the drawing-room door."

They remained silent, and exchanged anxious looks. The same
terrible thought occurred to them both.

"If it were he?"

But why should he have gone into the garden? It could not have
been to spy on them.

They did not think of the window.

"It couldn't have been Clement," said Bertha, at last. "He was
asleep when I went back, and he is in a calm and deep slumber now."

Sauvresy, stretched upon his bed, heard what his enemies were
saying. He cursed his imprudence.

"Suppose," thought he, "they should think of looking at my gown and
slippers!"

Happily this simple idea did not occur to them; after reassuring
each other as well as they were able, they separated; but each
heart carried an anxious doubt. Sauvresy on that night had a
terrible crisis in his illness. Delirium, succeeding this ray of
reason, renewed its possession of his brain. The next morning Dr.
R--- pronounced him in more danger than ever; and sent a despatch
to Paris, saying that he would be detained at Valfeuillu three or
four days. The distemper redoubled in violence; very contradictory
symptoms appeared. Each day brought some new phase of it, which
confounded the foresight of the doctors. Every time that Sauvresy
had a moment of reason, the scene at the window recurred to him,
and drove him to madness again.

On that terrible night when he had gone out into the snow, he had
not been mistaken; Bertha was really begging something of Hector.
This was it:

M. Courtois, the mayor, had invited Hector to accompany himself and
his family on an excursion to Fontainebleau on the following day.
Hector had cordially accepted the invitation. Bertha could not bear
the idea of his spending the day in Laurence's company, and begged
him not to go. She told him there were plenty of excuses to relieve
him from his promise; for instance, he might urge that it would not
be seemly for him to go when his friend lay dangerously ill. At
first he positively refused to grant her prayer, but by her
supplications and menaces she persuaded him, and she did not go
downstairs until he had sworn that h