as Madame
Seraphin, the notary's housekeeper, who brought the young girl to him."

The countess continued writing, and then read aloud:

"I declare that, in the month of February, 1827, a person named--"

The Chouette had drawn the poniard; already had she raised her arm to
strike her victim between the shoulders; Sarah turned again. The
Chouette, that she might not be off her guard, leaned her right hand,
armed as it was, on the back of Sarah's armchair, and then stooped
towards her, as if in attitude to reply to her question.

"Tell me again the name of the man who handed the child to you?" said
the countess.

"Pierre Tournemine," repeated Sarah, as she wrote it down, "at this time
at the galleys of Rochefort, brought me a child, which had been confided
to him by the housekeeper of--"

The countess could not finish. The Chouette having got rid of her basket
by allowing it to slide from her arm onto the floor, threw herself on
the countess with equal fury and rapidity; and having grasped the back
of her neck with her left hand, forced her face down on the table, and
then with her right hand drove the stiletto in between her two
shoulders.

This atrocious assassination was so promptly effected that the countess
did not utter a cry--a moan. Still sitting, she remained with her head
and the front of her body on the table. Her pen fell from her fingers.

"Just the very blow which _fourline_ gave the little old man in the Rue
du Roule!" said the monster. "One more who will never wag tongue again!
Her account is settled!" And the Chouette, gathering up the jewels
together, huddled them into her basket, not perceiving that her victim
still breathed.

The murder and robbery effected, the horrid old devil opened the glass
door, ran swiftly along the tree-covered path, went out by the small
side door, and reached the lone tract of ground. Near the Observatory
she took a hackney-coach, which drove her to Bras-Rouge's in the Champs
Elysees.

The widow Martial, Nicholas, Calabash, and Barbillon had, as we know, an
appointment with the Chouette in this den of infamy, in order to rob and
murder the diamond-matcher.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE AGENT OF SAFETY.

The reader already knows the Bleeding Heart in the Champs Elysees, near
the Court de la Reine, in one of the deep ditches which, a few years
since, were close to this promenade. The inhabitants of the Isle du
Ravageur had not yet arrived.

After the departure