"What on earth is it?" he cried, beside himself, as he recalled her astounding laughter near the pool at Hillocks Manor. "Are you going to laugh again to-day?"
"I'm laughing for the same reason: you are lost."
He tried to take it as a joke:
"Hang it! How?"
"Yes," she declared. "I told you so from the first moment; and I was right."
"You're mad," he said, shrugging his shoulders.
She noticed that he had grown more respectful, and sure of a victory which rested in her extraordinary coolness and in the absolute similarity of the two scenes, she repeated:
"You are lost. The situation really is the same as at the Manor. There Raoul and the children had gone to seek for help; and of a sudden, when you were the master, the barrel of a gun was leveled at you. Here, it is the same. The three urchins have found men. They are there, as at the Manor with their guns.... You remember? They are here. The barrels of the guns are leveled at you."
"You l-l-lie!" stammered the ruffian.
"They are there," she declared in a yet more impressive tone. "I've heard my boys' signal. They haven't wasted time coming round the tower. They are on the other side of that wall."