ich the bailiff pointed out as he walked
along examining them. Presently he stopped in the middle of the path
about a hundred feet from the broken jug, where the girl's foot-prints
ceased.

"Here," he said, "she turned towards the Avonne; perhaps she was headed
off from the direction of the pavilion."

"But she has been gone more than an hour," cried Madame Michaud.

Alarm was in all faces. The abbe ran towards the pavilion, examining the
state of the road, while Michaud, impelled by the same thought, went up
the path towards Conches.

"Good God! she fell here," said Michaud, returning from a place where
the footsteps stopped near the brook, to that where they had turned in
the road, and pointing to the ground, he added, "See!"

The marks were plainly seen of a body lying at full length on the sandy
path.

"The footprints which have entered the wood are those of some one who
wore knitted soles," said the abbe.

"A woman, then," said the countess.

"Down there, by the broken pitcher, are the footsteps of a man," added
Michaud.

"I don't see traces of any other foot," said the abbe, who was tracking
into the wood the prints of the woman's feet.

"She must have been lifted and carried into the wood," cried Michaud.

"That can't be, if it is really a woman's foot," said Blondet.

"It must be some trick of that wretch, Nicolas," said Michaud. "He has
been watching La Pechina for some time. Only this morning I stood two
hours under the bridge of the Avonne to see what he was about. A woman
may have helped him."

"It is dreadful!" said the countess.

"They call it amusing themselves," added the priest, in a sad and
grieved tone.

"Oh! La Pechina would never let them keep her," said the bailiff; "she
is quite able to swim across the river. I shall look along the banks. Go
home, my dear Olympe; and you gentlemen and madame, please to follow the
avenue towards Conches."

"What a country!" exclaimed the countess.

"There are scoundrels everywhere," replied Blondet.

"Is it true, Monsieur l'abbe," asked Madame de Montcornet, "that I saved
the poor child from the clutches of Rigou?"

"Every young girl over fiften years of age whom you may protect at the
chateau is saved from that monster," said the abbe. "In trying to get
possession of La Pechina from her earliest years, the apostate sought
to satisfy both his lust and his vengeance. When I took Pere Niseron
as sexton I told him what Rigou's intentions were.