s is the prologue or rather the first scene of the drama.

What happened between them? This is the easier to guess inasmuch as the
sequel of the adventure gives us all the necessary clues. At the girl's
feet lies a wounded man, exhausted by suffering, who will be captured
in two minutes. THIS MAN HAS BEEN WOUNDED BY HERSELF. Will she also
give him up?

If he is Jean Daval's murderer, yes, she will let destiny take its
course. But, in quick sentences, he tells her the truth about this
awful murder committed by her uncle, M. de Gesvres. She believes him.
What will she do?

Nobody can see them. The footman Victor is watching the little door.
The other, Albert, posted at the drawing-room window, has lost sight of
both of them. Will she give up the man she has wounded?

The girl is carried away by a movement of irresistible pity, which any
woman will understand. Instructed by Lupin, with a few movements she
binds up the wound with his handkerchief, to avoid the marks which the
blood would leave. Then, with the aid of the key which he gives her,
she opens the door of the chapel. He enters, supported by the girl. She
locks the door again and walks away. Albert arrives.

If the chapel had been visited at that moment or at least during the
next few minutes, before Lupin had had time to recover his strength, to
raise the flagstone and disappear by the stairs leading to the crypt,
he would have been taken. But this visit did not take place until six
hours later and then only in the most superficial way. As it is, Lupin
is saved; and saved by whom? By the girl who very nearly killed him.

Thenceforth, whether she wishes it or no, Mlle. de Saint-Veran is his
accomplice. Not only is she no longer able to give him up, but she is
obliged to continue her work, else the wounded man will perish in the
shelter in which she has helped to conceal him. Therefore she continues.

For that matter, if her feminine instinct makes the task a compulsory
one, it also makes it easy. She is full of artifice, she foresees and
forestalls everything. It is she who gives the examining magistrate a
false description of Arsene Lupin (the reader will remember the
difference of opinion on this subject between the cousins). It is she,
obviously, who, thanks to certain signs which I do not know of,
suspects an accomplice of Lupin's in the driver of the fly. She warns
him. She informs him of the urgent need of an operation. It is she, no
doubt, who substit