"But you yourself,--you are wounded."
Great drops of blood were falling thick, and fast from the widow's forehead upon Bonneville's breast.
"I?" she said.
"Yes; your blood is flowing."
"What matters my blood, if not a drop remains in him for whom I could not die as I had sworn?" she cried.
At this moment a soldier looked down through the trapdoor.
"Lieutenant," he said, "the other has escaped through the loft; we fired at him and missed him."
"The other!" cried the lieutenant; "it is the other we want!"--supposing, very naturally, that the one who had escaped was Petit-Pierre. "But unless he finds another guide we are sure of him. After him, instantly!" Then reflecting, "But first, my good woman, get up," he continued. "You men, search that body."
The order was executed; but nothing was found in Bonneville's pocket, for the good reason that he was wearing Pascal Picaut's clothes, which the widow had given him while she dried his own.
"Now," said Marianne Picaut, when the order was obeyed, "he is really mine, is he not?" and she stretched her arm over the body of the young man.