"There she is! . . . Bérangère! Are you hurt?"

I leapt towards him. Bérangère lay outstretched in a tangle of leaves and herbage.

She was so pale that I had not a doubt but that she was dead; and I felt very clearly that I should not be able to survive her. I even completed my thought by saying, aloud:

"I will avenge her first. The murderer shall die by my hand, I swear it."

But the count, after a hurried inspection, declared.

"She's not dead, she's breathing."

And I saw her open her eyes.

I fell on my knees besides her and, lifting her fair and sorrow-stricken face in my hands, asked her:

"Where are you hurt, Bérangère? Tell me, darling."

"I'm not hurt," she whispered. "It's the exertion, the excitement."