'It may be so,' thought Piquet, 'but they sha'n't drive it out of my head that Bonnemain is an ugly dog, and if I were Monsieur Gorsay, I should get rid of him in short order.'
About the middle of the following night a strange rencounter took place upon the coping of the wall which surrounded the park of M. Gorsay, on the side of the alley of plane trees. Two men who at the same moment were scaling this enclosure, the one from the outside and the other from within, suddenly found themselves face to face on reaching its summit. Mutually startled at so unexpected a meeting, both were on the point of letting go their hold. Instinctively, however, they preserved themselves from falling by clinging to the cope-stone of the wall, and bestriding it with a vigorous effort, found themselves seated on a more secure resting-place. For a few moments they remained motionless, face to face in this position, bestriding the wall, to which they clung tightly with their legs, so as to leave their hands at liberty for the contest which such a rencounter seemed to render probable. They were so close to each other that in spite of the darkness they could distinguish the persons, and in a short time recognized each other. Presently the one who came from without saw the arm of his adversary suddenly raised, and at the extremity of the outline which it for the instant formed with the dark back-ground of the heaven, he distinguished the blade of a knife or dagger. Retreat was out of the question, and the attack was a deadly one. Unarmed himself, he sprang upon his assailant, seized the extended arm with one hand, and with the other rudely grasped him by the throat.
'Bonnemain!' said he, in a low tone, 'throw down your knife, or I will pitch you from the wall!'
Compelled under fear of strangulation to obey this mandate, the convict dropped his weapon, which fell into the park.
'Monsieur d'Aubian,' said he, in a half-stifled voice, 'let me get down; I will not prevent your going in, do not hinder me from going out.'
'You have been committing a robbery,' said Arthur; 'people do not scale walls in this manner without some evil intent.'
'But you yourself are climbing them; does it follow that you are a robber?'
Rendered mute by this reply, the lover of Lucia reflected that even had a robbery been committed, it would be impossible for him to arrest the criminal without compromising the woman he loved.
'Best let him go,' thought he; 'it is doubtless his interest that I should be silent, and he for his own sake will hold his tongue.'