Roger sprang forward, eager to help. And they were bearing the man to the rear, and the Abbess had taken heart to uncover her eyes, while still averting them, when a strange sound broke from her lips--lips blanched in an instant to the colour of paper. It caught the ear of the Bat, who stood nearest to her. He turned. The Abbess, with arm outstretched, was pointing to the door of the Countess's hut. There, visible, though she seemed to shrink from sight, and even raised her hand in deprecation, stood the Countess herself.
"By Heaven!" the Bat cried. And he stood. While Roger, in place of advancing, gazed on her as on a ghost.
She tried to speak, but no sound came. And for the Abbess she had as easily spoken as the dead. Her senses tottered, the slim figure danced before her eyes, the voices of those who spoke came from a great way off.
It was the Vicomte who, being the least concerned, was first to find his voice. "Is it you, Countess?" he quavered.
The Countess nodded. She could not speak.
"But how--how have you escaped?"
"Ay, how?" the Bat chimed in more soberly. He saw that it was no phantom, though the mystery seemed none the less for that. "How come you here, Countess? How--am I mad, or did you not go to their quarters at sundown?"
"No," she whispered. "I did not go." She framed the words with difficulty. Between shame and excitement she seemed ready to sink into the earth.
"No? You did not? Then who--who did go? Some one went."
She made a vain attempt to speak. Then commanding herself--