ned; "he
is dead."

The Marquise overheard that piteous cry, and turned to survey the girl,
her brows lifting, her lips parting in an astonishment that for a second
effaced the horrors of that night. Suspicion spread like an oil stain
in her evil mind. She stepped forward and caught the girl by one of her
limp arms. Marius, paler than his stunning had left him, leaned more
heavily against the door-post, and looked on with bloodshot eyes.
If ever maiden avowed the secret of her heart, it seemed to him that
Valerie avowed it then.

The Marquise shook her angrily.

"What was he to you, girl? What was he to you?" she demanded shrilly.

And the girl, no more than half conscious of what she was saying, made
answer:

"The bravest gentleman, the noblest friend I have ever known."

Pah! The Dowager dropped her arm and turned to issue a command to
Fortunio. But already the fellow had departed. His concern was not with
women, but with the man who had escaped him. He must make certain that
the fall had killed Garnache.

Breathless and worn as he was, all spattered now with blood from the
scratch in his cheek, which lent him a terrific aspect, he dashed
from that shambles and across the guard-room. He snatched up a lighted
lantern that had been left in the doorway and leapt down the stairs
and into the courtyard. Here he came upon Monsieur de Tressan with a
half-dozen fellows at his heels, all more or less half clad, but all
very fully armed with swords and knives, and one or two with muskets.

Roughly, with little thought for the dignity of his high office, he
thrust the Lord Seneschal aside and turned the men. Some he ordered off
to the stables to get horses, for if Garnache had survived his leap and
swum the moat, they must give chase. Whatever betide, the Parisian must
not get away. He feared the consequences of that as much for himself as
for Condillac. Some five or six of the men he bade follow him, and never
pausing to answer any of Tressan's fearful questions, he sped across
the courtyard, through the kitchens--which was the nearest way--into the
outer quadrangle. Never pausing to draw breath, spent though he was, he
pursued his flight under the great archway of the keep and across the
drawbridge, the raising of which had been that night postponed to await
the Lord Seneschal's departure.

Here on the bridge he paused and turned in a frenzy to scream to his
followers that they should fetch more torches. Meanwhile h