under this roof without
your knowing it?" replied Laurence. "Durieu," she added, "see if it is
possible to save my poor Stella; she is still breathing."

"She must have gone a great distance," said Corentin.

"Forty miles in three hours," she answered, addressing the abbe, who
watched her with amazement. "I started at half-past nine, and it was
well past one when I returned."

She looked at the clock which said half-past two.

"So you don't deny that you have ridden forty miles?" said Corentin.

"No," she said. "I admit that my cousins, in their perfect innocence,
expected not to be excluded from the amnesty, and were on their way to
Cinq-Cygne. When I found that the Sieur Malin was plotting to injure
them, I went to warn them to return to Germany, where they will be
before the telegraph can have guarded the frontier. If I have done wrong
I shall be punished for it."

This answer, which Laurence had carefully considered, was so probable in
all its parts that Corentin's convictions were shaken. In that decisive
moment, when every soul present hung suspended, as it were, on the faces
of the two adversaries, and all eyes turned from Corentin to Laurence
and from Laurence to Corentin, again the gallop of a horse, coming from
the forest, resounded on the road and from there through the gates to
the paved courtyard. Frightful anxiety was stamped on every face.

Peyrade entered, his eyes gleaming with joy. He went hastily to Corentin
and said, loud enough for the countess to hear him: "We have caught
Michu."

Laurence, to whom the agony, fatigue, and tension of all her
intellectual faculties had given an unusual color, turned white and fell
back almost fainting on a chair. Madame Durieu, Mademoiselle Goujet,
and Madame d'Hauteserre sprang to help her, for she was suffocating. She
signed to cut the frogging of her habit.

"Duped!" said Corentin to Peyrade. "I am certain now they are on their
way to Paris. Change the orders."

They left the room and the house, placing one gendarme on guard at the
door of the salon. The infernal cleverness of the two men had gained
a terrible advantage by taking Laurence in the trap of a not uncommon
trick.

CHAPTER IX. FOILED

At six o'clock in the morning, as day was dawning, Corentin and Peyrade
returned. Having explored the covered way they were satisfied that
horses had passed through it to reach the forest. They were now awaiting
the report of the captain of gendarmerie