d in a gray blouse and blue cap, come out of the ravine.
He appeared in tears, and directly he saw the Goualeuse he ran towards
her.

"Oh, good lady, have pity on me, I pray!" he exclaimed, clasping his
hands with a supplicating look.

"What do you want? What is the matter with you, my poor boy?" said the
Goualeuse, with an air of interest.

"Alas, good lady! my poor grandmother, who is very, very old, has fallen
down in trying to climb up the ravine, and hurt herself very much. I am
afraid she has broken her leg, and I am too weak to lift her up myself.
_Mon Dieu!_ what shall I do if you will not come and help me? Perhaps my
poor grandmother will die!"

The Goualeuse, touched with the grief of the little cripple, replied:

"I am not very strong myself, my child; but perhaps I can help you to
assist your poor grandmother. Let us go to her as quickly as we can! I
live at the farm close by here; and, if the poor old woman cannot walk
there with us, I will send somebody to help her!"

"Oh, good lady, _le bon Dieu_ will bless you for your kindness! It is
close by here--not two steps down this hollow way, as I told you. It was
in going down the slope that she fell."

"You do not belong to this part of the country?" said the Goualeuse,
inquiringly following Tortillard, whom our readers have, no doubt,
recognised.

"No, good lady, we came from Ecouen."

"And where are you going?"

"To a good clergyman's, who lives on the hill out there," said Bras
Rouge's son, to increase Fleur-de-Marie's confidence.

"To the Abbe Laport's, perhaps?"

"Yes, good lady; to the Abbe Laport's. My poor grandmother knows him
very, very well."

"And I was going there also. How strange that we should meet," said
Fleur-de-Marie, advancing still farther into the hollow way.

"Grandmamma, I'm coming, I'm coming! Take courage, and I will bring you
help!" cried Tortillard, to forewarn the Schoolmaster and the Chouette
to prepare themselves to lay hands on their victim.

"Your grandmother, then, did not fall down far off from here?" inquired
the Goualeuse.

"No, good lady; behind that large tree there, where the road turns,
about twenty paces from here."

Suddenly Tortillard stopped.

The noise of a horse galloping was heard in the silence of the place.

"All is lost again!" said Tortillard to himself.

The road made a very sudden bend a few yards from the spot where Bras
Rouge's son was with the Goualeuse. A horseman appeared at t