“Don’t be afraid—I am not wounded—Daval?—Is he alive?—The knife?—The knife?—”
Two men-servants now arrived with candles. Raymonde flung herself down before the other body and recognized Jean Daval, the count’s private secretary. A little stream of blood trickled from his neck. His face already wore the pallor of death.
Then she rose, returned to the drawing room, took a gun that hung in a trophy of arms on the wall and went out on the balcony. Not more than fifty or sixty seconds had elapsed since the man had set his foot on the top rung of the ladder. He could not, therefore, be very far away, the more so as he had taken the precaution to remove the ladder, in order to prevent the inmates of the house from using it. And soon she saw him skirting the remains of the old cloister. She put the gun to her shoulder, calmly took aim and fired. The man fell.
“That’s done it! That’s done it!” said one of the servants. “We’ve got this one. I’ll run down.”
“No, Victor, he’s getting up.... You had better go down by the staircase and make straight for the little door in the wall. That’s the only way he can escape.”
Victor hurried off, but, before he reached the park, the man fell down again. Raymonde called the other servant:
“Albert, do you see him down there? Near the main cloister?—”
“Yes, he’s crawling in the grass. He’s done for—”
“Watch him from here.”
“There’s no way of escape for him. On the right of the ruins is the open lawn—”