tered. The young woman hastened to meet him. They threw
themselves into each other's arms, embraced tenderly, and returned
together to the house. The man was M. de Villefort; I fully believed
that when he went out in the night he would be forced to traverse the
whole of the garden alone."

"And," asked the count, "did you ever know the name of this woman?"

"No, excellency," returned Bertuccio; "you will see that I had no time
to learn it."

"Go on."

"That evening," continued Bertuccio, "I could have killed the procureur,
but as I was not sufficiently acquainted with the neighborhood, I was
fearful of not killing him on the spot, and that if his cries were
overheard I might be taken; so I put it off until the next occasion, and
in order that nothing should escape me, I took a chamber looking into
the street bordered by the wall of the garden. Three days after, about
seven o'clock in the evening, I saw a servant on horseback leave the
house at full gallop, and take the road to Sevres. I concluded that he
was going to Versailles, and I was not deceived. Three hours later,
the man returned covered with dust, his errand was performed, and two
minutes after, another man on foot, muffled in a mantle, opened the
little door of the garden, which he closed after him. I descended
rapidly; although I had not seen Villefort's face, I recognized him by
the beating of my heart. I crossed the street, and stopped at a post
placed at the angle of the wall, and by means of which I had once before
looked into the garden. This time I did not content myself with looking,
but I took my knife out of my pocket, felt that the point was sharp, and
sprang over the wall. My first care was to run to the door; he had left
the key in it, taking the simple precaution of turning it twice in the
lock. Nothing, then, preventing my escape by this means, I examined
the grounds. The garden was long and narrow; a stretch of smooth turf
extended down the middle, and at the corners were clumps of trees with
thick and massy foliage, that made a background for the shrubs and
flowers. In order to go from the door to the house, or from the house
to the door, M. de Villefort would be obliged to pass by one of these
clumps of trees.

"It was the end of September; the wind blew violently. The faint
glimpses of the pale moon, hidden momentarily by masses of dark clouds
that were sweeping across the sky, whitened the gravel walks that led
to the house, but were