The Vicomte sank back in his chair. "Impossible!" he cried. Then in a much lower tone: "Impossible!" he repeated. "You dream, girl. M. de Vlaye has done some things not quite--not regular. But--but in cases perfectly different. To people of--of no consequence! This cannot be!"
"I fear it is so, sir," she whispered, without raising her eyes. "Nor is that--the worst."
The Vicomte clenched his fingers about the arms of his chair and nodded the question he could not frame.
"It was with the Abbess, sir--with my sister," Bonne continued in a low tone, "that the Countess was to stay the night. I fear that it was from her that he learned where and how to beset her."
The Vicomte looked as if he was about to have a fit.
"What?" he cried. "Do you dare, unnatural girl, to assert that your sister was privy to this outrage?"
"Heaven forbid, sir!" Bonne answered fervently. "She knew naught of it. But----"
"Then why----"
"But it was from her, I fear, that he learned where the child--she is little more--could be surprised."
The Vicomte glared at her without speaking. The Lieutenant, who had listened, not without admiration of the girl's sense and firmness, seized the opening to intervene. "Were it not well, sir," he said, his matter-of-fact tone calming the Vicomte's temper, "if mademoiselle told us as nearly as possible what she has heard? And, as she has been somewhat shaken, perhaps you will permit her to sit down! She will then, I think, be able to tell us more quickly what we want."