e arm of La Louve, who
still retained over her wet clothes the plaid cloak which belonged to
Calabash. Struck with the paleness of Martial, and remarking his hands
covered with dried blood, the comte exclaimed, "Who is this man?"

"My husband!" replied La Louve, looking at Martial with an expression of
happiness and noble pride impossible to describe.

"You have a good and intrepid wife, sir," said the comte to him. "I saw
her save this unfortunate young girl with singular courage."

"Yes, sir, my wife is good and intrepid," replied Martial, with
emphasis, and regarding La Louve with an air at once full of love and
tenderness. "Yes, intrepid; for she has also come in time to save my
life."

"Your life?" exclaimed the comte.

"Look at his hands--his poor hands!" said La Louve, wiping away the
tears which softened the wild brightness of her eyes.

"Horrible!" cried the comte. "See, doctor, how his hands are hacked!"

Doctor Griffon, turning his head slightly, and looking over his shoulder
at Martial's hands, said to him, "Open and shut your hand."

Martial did so with considerable pain. The doctor shrugged his
shoulders, and continued his attentions to Fleur-de-Marie, saying
merely, and as if with regret:

"There's nothing serious in those cuts,--there's no tendon injured. In a
week the subject will be able to use his hands again."

"Then, sir, my husband will not be crippled?" said La Louve, with
gratitude.

The doctor shook his head affirmatively.

"And La Goualeuse will recover--won't she, sir?" inquired La Louve. "Oh,
she must live, for I and my husband owe her so much!" Then turning
towards Martial, "Poor dear girl! There she is, as I told you,--she who
will, perhaps, be the cause of our happiness; for it was she who gave me
the idea of coming and saying to you all I have said. What a chance that
I should save her--and here, too!"

"She is a providence," said Martial, struck by the beauty of La
Goualeuse. "What an angel's face! Oh, she will recover, will she not,
doctor?"

"I cannot say," replied the doctor. "But, in the first place, can she
remain here? Will she have all necessary attention?"

"Here?" cried La Louve; "why, they commit murder here!"

"Silence--silence!" said Martial.

The comte and the doctor looked at La Louve with surprise.

"This house in the isle has a bad reputation hereabouts, and I am not
astonished at it," observed the doctor, in a low tone, to M. de
Saint-Remy.

"You