"Firstly, Monsieur the Duc de Maine; fancy that miserable bastard conspiring against a man like Monseigneur the Regent. Then a Count de Laval, a Marquis de Pompadour, a Baron de Valef, the Prince de Cellamare, the Abbe Brigaud, that abominable Abbe Brigaud! Think of my having copied the list."
"My father," said Bathilde, shuddering with fear, "my father, among all those names, did you not see the name—the name—of—Chevalier—Raoul d'Harmental?"
"That I did," cried Buvat, "the Chevalier Raoul d'Harmental—why he is the head of the company: but the regent knows them all, and this very evening they will all be arrested, and to-morrow hanged, drawn, quartered, broken on the wheel."
"Oh, luckless, shameful, that you are!" cried Bathilde, wringing her hands wildly; "you have killed the man whom I love—but, I swear to you, by the memory of my mother, that if he dies, I will die also!"
And thinking that she might still be in time to warn D'Harmental of the danger which threatened him, Bathilde left Buvat confounded, darted to the door, flew down the staircase, cleared the street at two bounds, rushed up the stairs, and, breathless, terrified, dying, hurled herself against the door of D'Harmental's room, which, badly closed by the chevalier, yielded before her, exposing to her view the body of the captain stretched on the floor, and swimming in a sea of blood.
At this sight, so widely different from what she expected, Bathilde, not thinking that she might perhaps be compromising her lover, sprang toward the door, calling for help, but on reaching the threshold, either from weakness, or from the blood, her foot slipped, and she fell backward with a terrible cry.
The neighbors came running in the direction of the cry, and found that Bathilde had fainted, and that her head, in falling against the angle of the door, had been badly wounded.
They carried Bathilde to Madame Denis's room, and the good woman hastened to offer her hospitality.
As to Captain Roquefinette, as he had torn off the address of the letter which he had in his pocket to light his pipe with, and had no other paper to indicate his name or residence, they carried his body to the Morgue, where, three days afterward, it was recognized by La Normande.