"Dungeon ghosts--rattling their gyves," Jean observed, quietly. "See--there's another yonder."
Toinon looked up and held her breath. In the broad moonbeams a woman stood erect in a boat! A woman, who slowly divested herself of a drapery and arranged it carefully upon the seat. Then she placed a foot upon the gunwale and deliberately plunged into the stream.
It was all so unexpected--so sudden--that the two stood paralysed. Both knew the slim figure well. They were startled from awe-stricken stupor by shouts above. The chevalier was stamping on a balcony wildly waving his arms. "It is Gabrielle! Gabrielle!" he shrieked. "Save her! save her! save her!" And then, with a despairing yell, he dashed away in the direction of the children's wing.
Jean muttered with contempt: "The useless imbecile," and, disengaging himself from Toinon's encircling arms, leapt from the platform into the water. Breathless and proud of him, Toinon watched his strong strokes as they clove the oily surface. He had hold of her--thank God! and was bearing his burthen to the bank.
There was a hubbub and an outcry in the house approaching nearer. Clovis and the chevalier appeared at a window shouting madly: "Save her!" The marquis disappeared from the balcony, and touching a spring, vanished down a secret staircase which gave upon the slippery gangway, accompanied by Mademoiselle Brunelle, who with a new care upon her brow was swiftly following his lead. De Gange received the inanimate burthen into his arms, while tears poured down his face. "God bless you, Jean," he sobbed, "God bless you. I will never forget this deed. She will live--she has but swooned. Jean, you have saved her from death--me from a life-long remorse."
Aglaé's clouded visage grew more perplexed as he took roughly from her the mantle she had cast over her shoulders to wrap it round his dripping burthen.
"He takes my cloak," she muttered, "not caring if I feel cold!"
"Aglaé, feel," he whispered anxiously. "Am I not right? Does not her pulse still beat?"
Mademoiselle Brunelle roused herself from astonished reverie to attend to the exigencies of the moment. "Yes," she declared, with authoritative promptitude. "The poor crazy lady lives. Toinon, warm a bed without delay. Jean, take horse at once and fetch a doctor. We two will see to her meanwhile."
Moaning and shaking, the scared and palsied chevalier stood helpless by, wringing his hands together. "She went in the boat alone, poor thing," he whimpered, "because she could not trust me. Oh! that fatal night--that fatal night! Of course she would not trust me."