"Yes, yes, that was it! I begged you to fire——"
"And I did."
Her heart was beating against my breast. I held her close in silence.
"Dick," she said at length, "perhaps you killed the—the thing."
"If it was human I did not miss," I answered grimly. "And it was human," I went on, pulling myself together, ashamed of having so nearly gone to pieces. "Of course it was human! The whole affair is plain enough. Not a drunken brawl, as Durand thinks; it was a drunken lout's practical joke, for which he has suffered. I suppose I must have filled him pretty full of bullets, and he has crawled away to die in Kerselec forest. It's a terrible affair; I'm sorry I fired so hastily; but that idiot Le Bihan and Max Fortin have been working on my nerves till I am as hysterical as a schoolgirl," I ended angrily.
"You fired—but the window glass was not shattered," said Lys in a low voice.
"Well, the window was open, then. And as for the—the rest—I've got nervous indigestion, and a doctor will settle the Black Priest for me, Lys."
I glanced out of the window at Tregunc waiting with my horse at the gate.
"Dearest, I think I had better go to join Durand and the others."
"I will go, too."