“Come,” said Edouard; “give me the child; let us fly, let us fly from this place, or you are lost.”
“Why should we fly? What danger threatens you? Have you not suffered enough? Does man’s justice pursue you still?”
“Yes, yes; and you yourself are in danger from the rage of the brigands! Listen,—do you hear those shrieks in the house? They are murdering an old man without pity; come, I tell you, or they will kill you before my eyes! Oh! do not refuse me! I am a monster, a villain, but I long to save you.”
Adeline allowed herself to be led away by her husband; she took her child in her arms and was about to follow him, when the shutters were violently thrown open, while the bell at the gate rang loudly.
A man appeared in the window, and prepared to leap into the room, calling to his companion:
“Here’s a breach; this way, comrade, this way! There are villains in the citadel; let us go in and we’ll give them a hiding, ten thousand cartridges! Forward!”
At sight of the stranger, Edouard, bewildered and beside himself with fear, had no doubt that he had come to arrest him and his companions; seeking to avoid the punishment that awaited him, he dropped Adeline’s hand and pushed her away when she clung to him.
“You are saved,” he said; “let me alone, do not follow me; adieu, adieu forever!”
He rushed out through the door at the end of the room, reached the courtyard, succeeded in climbing over the gate and fled into the woods. At the same moment Jacques and Sans-Souci entered Adeline’s room by the window; she, exhausted by all the shocks to which her mind had been exposed, fell unconscious at the moment that her husband disappeared.